


The Ones Who Ran

by fundamentalBlue



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lyanna Is Alive, F/M, Lyanna Stark Lives, R plus L equals J
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-02-06 15:17:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12820332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fundamentalBlue/pseuds/fundamentalBlue
Summary: "Lyanna. It's Lyanna Targaryen, or my Lady if you must, but I'll not have you refer to me as a Queen if you continue to refuse to obey me as one." She was brought here for protection, but when her Prince left, Lyanna has gone from guest to prisoner. And the last thing you want to do is imprison a wolf. Rating will change later. Also posted on FF.





	1. Chapter 1

She studied the run she had acquired on her silken elbow before putting her arm back in the same position that had helped wear the thin thread apart. It had been easier before, to say she was no lady, when she had only worn homespun dresses of the north that she had embroidered under the watchful gaze of her ever dour Septa.

Even with the small lines of pulled thread at the hem of her gown and elsewhere, the dress was beautiful. Like all the clothing she had been given. The stitching was finer than any she could accomplish and it only served to make her feel like she was always looking back to before she wore such things. Before Harrenhal, before Robert and even before that, when she was naught but a girl learning swordplay and riding with her brothers, a winter rose stolen from father's glass house tucked into her hair.

In those times, she had been certain and sure, with a trust in the future that only a thirteen year old girl born of the north could have.

Winter was always on its way, only a few years from when she was young to when it arrived. Its course, like all winters before it, would be plodding and all-too consistent. Indefatigable snows would press against the walls of Winterfell. Such was life.

She knew it to be true, because Old Nan had said this and more when she had laid in her bed at night, while the creak-creak of Old Nan's rocking chair echoed in her bedroom. Now, it was false spring, and without Rhaegar she was adrift in the red sands of Dorne, her only outlet the three men who guarded her existence. Winter was coming, but it was still only a promise.

Cold was winding its way south, and the nights were beginning to be blessedly chill in comparison to each dry and empty day in the Tower of Joy.

She considered her guardians something like nuncles after having spent almost a year with them, at least Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Oswell Whent. Ser Gerold Hightower had come later, and with him a stony silence that had moved in like a cloud to smother the mirth of Ser Whent and the kind attentiveness of Ser Dayne.

Ser Hightower had brought news with him, she knew. She inferred that it was the cause of Ser Dayne's look of pity when he thought she couldn't observe him in her periphery. Ser Whent's humor became darker, if it could be believed.

She grimaced, thinking of the steps to the dance they all marched along in willingly. Every day she asked Ser Dayne for any ravens or news, and each time he would tell her that there was nothing but what was already known; Aerys was dead by his own Hand, the North had declared for Lord Arryn and Robert Baratheon. No word of Brandon, Ned, Benjen or her father Rickard. Rhaegar was in the midst of fighting, but she was never told exactly where.

Ser Dayne was lying to her, to be sure, but he did it with such quiet desperation in his voice that pleaded with her to continue asking if she must, but not to expect a true answer. It made her wonder what happened to the wolf in her that she abided by this tense arrangement that seemed to grow more fraught with each passing day.

 _Rhaegar wouldn't love a fool,_ she believed. It helped in these moments where she felt vulnerable in many ways a woman could.

Even if her Prince didn't think her actions suspect, there were times when she knew for certain that she'd been a fool to love him. His child sat high in her womb, maybe several weeks away from entering the world, or days from it. Yes, she'd married him in the eyes of the Old Gods and the New, but the whole of Westeros knew nothing of this.

Yet, she didn't love him despite herself.

_Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature._

Her own words whispered into her mind, and she lived again in those times before where she'd been both wise and somehow shamefully ignorant. Still, she couldn't find even a measure of regret, but instead a fierce and fiery love for the child inside her and the man who put it there.

In childhood, she hadn't thought about what she would want in a husband. For her, it had always been about fighting, riding and keeping the Stark faith. As a daughter of the Warden of the North, there was an explicit obligation to protect the land and its people. From what, she couldn't exactly describe, yet her instinct to learn all that she could to be a steward to the North remained.

The day she learned that her duty would lay not in taking up a sword, but in laying with a man she did not know, she was so incredulous that her father misinterpreted her silence for assent. It was only her little brother, Benjen, who she confessed her impractical plans for escape.

_She grasped a smooth white branch in one hand and swung the rest of her body on top of it, now looking down at the pale face and black hair of her brother._

" _Up!" Reaching down, he put his hand in hers and stood on another branch just below her. He turned, a little clumsily but catching himself on another branch with his right hand, looking out towards the castle._

" _I see it!" He gasped with joy._

" _Told you," Lyanna said smugly, with the confidence of a child who has done something only a few times more than another._

_They looked out at the towers of Winterfell, Lyanna thinking she would never leave here, ever, no matter what father or maester Walys said. She'd hide in the crypts first, and steal hot pies from the kitchen, or hunt for her food before she'd run north or south, or anywhere, really._

" _Don't be telling Walder now about it, he'll rat us right out to Old Nan, who'll go straight to father-" She glowered down at him and playfully smacked his head. He ducked down and looked sour at being thought a tattle tale._

" _I know, I know, Lya. On my honor as a Stark." His boyish voice deepened, trying to sound like their brother Bran._

" _I believe you." She said simply, twirling a red leaf's stem in her free hand. He wouldn't likely tell even if she hadn't asked him not to, but she wasn't taking any chances. Otherwise the maester would whisper in her father's ear about how it was un-lady like to be climbing in the godswood, and that surely, her father wouldn't wish to add to the list of her "unsuitable" qualities?_

" _Father said that Brandon is to marry a southron lady. Mayhap father won't make you go south?" Benjen hoisted himself up another branch, moving to sit beside her. She snorted and dropped the blood red leaf, watching it drift down to the cold pool that sat limpid below the massive tree._

" _On my honor, I won't marry a man if I don't want. I'll take the black first, or I'll go to the Free Cities and join the Second Sons, or maybe I'll just go straight past the Wall and become a wildling!" If she didn't take the black, she'd become Queen beyond the wall, and fight giants and Thenns._

" _But Brave Danny Flint-" her brother was still soft yet, softer than her and he worried about such things now. But he would grow hard as a man should, and she, well, she was almost a woman. And somehow when that moment came she would be transformed into an pliant maid ready for plucking by some lord in the south. She scarcely believed it, but the way her mother and the Septa would go on and on about how when she flowered she would become this_ thing _, this creature of opulence fueled by her obedience to her lord husband, it made a planner out of a wolf girl like her._

" _Bet she didn't know the proper end of a sword. And a Flint, too, what with Rodrik Flint tryin' to make himself king beyond the wall." You didn't break a vow, that she knew. So help her, she'd never make a promise to be betrothed to anyone. Can't break a vow if you never make it._

Inexorably, she aged from the small girl who had shown her little brother her secret view of their home to a women who felt the bars of her role as the only girl her father had sired squeezing tightly. It wasn't a matter of whether she'd marry, it was when, and maybe there wouldn't be a choice of who.

The bars on her cage weren't straight, or immediately obvious, but like vines that shot up overnight and grew wherever she looked. And each, while they had different names, were all from the same toxic plant: marriage. Perhaps it'd be a Manderly. Or the heir of Riverrun. Definitely not a Karstark, as there was no need to solidify an alliance, yet the threat loomed if nothing else substantial was negotiated, or she did something to dishonor her family. Maybe the Lord of the Eyrie, old as he was, would be it, given that he had no heirs.

When her stern, quiet older brother Ned came home to Winterfell from the Eyrie, carrying the words of his Storm Lord friend he would make a good-brother, she felt the whispers that this might be the last noose she couldn't escape. Her moonblood hadn't quite come yet, but it was only months away, given how the Septa had constantly inspected her sheets in the morning and tutted when she found not a splotch between the layers of blankets.

Her first defense had been regarding Robert's faithfulness, and a newfound distrust of her brother Ned's capacity to think objectively of his close friend. Ned had argued that Brandon was no different, bringing up Barbrey Ryswell.

" _Bran did it for love! And truly, how was he to know father wouldn't allow him to marry a northern vassal's daughter. No Ned, it's not the same thing, it's-"_

" _Lya, please, he will make a fine father for your children, and if it's love you want, he's enamored of you." Ned pleaded softly, his hand reaching for hers as if to comfort her against the inevitable._

_Anger rose, hot and sour in her gut._

"No. I'll not be with a man that can't keep to his marriage bed. I don't care what father says, Ned. Nor you." She hissed, spinning away from her forlorn brother and ran to the Godswood.

Love, when it came for her, when it  _saved_ her from what she thought her worst fear and fate would be, was not sweet. Instead, it killed the girl in her, and from the blood of the wolf maid something else had sprung to life.

Altogether, she wasn't entirely sure who she was anymore. Some part of her was a hypocrite, she knew, given the child of the dragon roiling inside her.

Elia Targaryen had not been showing her pregnancy at the time, but after the tourney of Harrenhal where Rhaegar had set the trap for Lyanna's heart, Elia's forthcoming child had been announced. Even now, she remembered the fear inside at her own burgeoning emotions towards the Dragon Prince, and the painful knowledge that she couldn't, wouldn't be with a man who would not respect his marriage.

That deep hurt had festered, and then grew with the forbidden letters exchanged between her and Rhaegar, until it was something so tight with need, that love did what she said it could not, and changed her.

The ride to Harrenhal from Winterfell had never been longer, even with her mount lathered in sweat and heaving sides taking her ever closer to the Trident. Ser Whent met her at an inn in Harroway, just where Rhaegar said he'd be.

Donning plain leathers, no white cloak or white enameled armor, Oswell had taken her and fresh mounts across the Trident by boat.

She could still recall the loosening within her as she neared the five towers that sat on the misty shores of God's Eye lake. It was unnatural, how her disappearance from Winterfell, in defiance of her family and the realm itself, was an easy step forward that only became easier the nearer she was to Rhaegar. Should she have felt so free? As though her ride to him was unraveling her from the tethers of Lyanna the Wolf Maid into something unfettered and as wild as the Children of the Forest must have been? Something more real than she'd ever been as a maid of fifteen years.

When Ser Arthur Dayne and the Prince came galloping down the road to meet them, Lyanna would not be outdone in enthusiasm. She kicked her horse forward to meet the Prince head on, Ser Whent letting out a short curse as he too pushed his mount to follow.

Her laughter couldn't be heard in the wind, but the smile on Rhaegar's face told her that he too was jubilant.

In the many lectures her Septa had given on being betrothed and marriage, what Lyanna remembered most was the fear that what she and the Dragon Prince had written to one another would fizzle into stilted silence when they met face to face once more. That their love would be as flimsy as the paper they had written it on.

Septa had given her a sparing look of approval when she had expressed her fear, likely thinking Lyanna was referring to her Storm Lord betrothed. It wasn't that Septa was particularly cruel, but she had a keen idea as to what a Lady was, and was not. And fear of one's husband's approval was a part of the construct of a perfect, cultured southron lady who lived in the light of the Seven.

Poor Septa, to forget that Lyanna was a wolf, who, like her elder brother Brandon, simmered with needs and wants that would not go unmet.

What time that followed after the meeting at Harrenhal were idyllic, and something more than that. Days that never ended in her heart, and days that couldn't last before the Prince left their marriage bed cold, and Lyanna's belly pressing eagerly against her sparring leathers and the occasional corset. The gowns and corsets she would only wear in reminder of him, as long as she could, disliking how they restricted her movements otherwise. She'd had to let out the fabric herself eventually, having no maids in the Tower of Joy but for her nuncles.

But maids they were, in their own way.

It had taken some convincing, but Lyanna had continued her swordwork with Ser Dayne. Though she was still unhappy that it had been her husband who had given the final word on whether the Sword of Morning would consent to train her. She could still hear Rhaegar's laughter at his "little wolf", as he ruefully called her when she was being obstinate.

The Sword of Morning was not as competent a teacher as he was a swordsman. That these skills were not the same as the other, was a truth Lyanna already knew from having trained with Winterfell's master-at-arms. Her brother Brandon was gifted with an essential, but nameless quality that made him part centaur on a horse and fearsomely lucky with a sword.

Had their master-at-arms devoted as much time as he did to Rickard's heir as he did to her, she would have been better.

Despite Brandon's gift, the master-at-arm's method of teaching to was to hit at a weakness repeatedly until the bruises taught the lesson. But it was Rickard, their father, who saw the weakness and would describe the ways men could exploit them. She learned from her father about what a man would do to live, how he'd do it, and the many ways to stop him.

She could have tolerated a man like their master-at-arms. He'd at least strike at her to land the blow.

Now it had been a month since Ser Dayne had sparred with her, and almost seven months since Rhaegar had left. And even at the last time Lyanna and Ser Dayne had crossed swords, the softness in his eyes that she felt in his sword thrusts and swats had driven her into a rage. The result of her tantrum had brought on painful contractions, and had the remaining Kingsguard confine her to the tower walls until her Prince, her King, returned triumphant.

Agitated at the loss of her independence, no matter how much it had been illusory in the first place, she had sat at her window and looked into the night, architecting ways of finding out where Rhaegar was and how she could go to him. A wolf needed its pack.

While desert air of the mountains lost its oppressive heat with the coming of night, its dry stagnancy remained. It seemed to Lyanna that in the Tower of Joy time had stopped and sat listless in the sandy pass that lead back to Nightsong and south to Kingsgrave. No wind, no small creatures calling in the night, and no Rhaegar. It was so still, that sometimes she could imagine he had only just left moments before, or that suddenly she would see a torch in the darkness and hear the clank of moving armor as he returned to her.

"Your Grace, Ser Whent has prepared a small supper, if you wish me to escort you?" She hadn't truly recalled hearing Ser Dayne knock, nor had she realized that she'd replied to offer him entrance before the words had come out of her mouth. In the darkness, she could only see the slight reflection off of his white armor from the night sky. She wanted to scoff at his state of preparedness, but she held back, thinking that perhaps as hot as it must be traipsing about in armor all day, he may have the right of it.

The tower was encased in the kind of quiet that was always felt poised to end, and she wasn't the only one who wanted to be ready when it did.

"I'm not a Queen, Arty. Nor am I an invalid." She groused at him, lifting her skirts to stand on her constantly swollen feet. Somehow, he could see in the dim light better than she, and grasped her arm to steady her. Grunting she took a step away from him, but swayed some and reached back to place her hand as lightly as she could on the man's shoulder, determined to not rely on him too much, if she could help it.

"You may be a wolf, but you do carry a dragon." He had said before too, that being the wife of the Prince made her a Princess. And when Aerys passed, Rhaegar became King, which made her Queen. So found was the kingsguard of telling her her own value.

"He's a babe, and while he may be what he is, he is the same as any woman has borne. And if many a woman could walk and some, like the Mormonts, could fight up until they gave birth, you will not see a Stark shirk from such things." Ser Dayne said nothing at all, but let her lead them to the door and down the better lit stairs to the main hall. The argument she made about her delicate state was well worn between the two of them especially, but not unpleasantly so.

"Your Grace." Ser Whent looked up at her from where he was stirring their dinner over the fire and gave her a wry smile when he spoke. Ser Hightower, bowl and spoon in hand, nodded to her, but instead offered her "my lady."

For sometime now, she had told the Kingsguard that they could address her by Lyanna, but if their swords were still shoved up their behinds too tightly, she supposed "my lady" would do. Ser Gerold Hightower had acceded to doing so without question, Lyanna still too informal for even him, while Ser Dayne continued "your Grace"'ing out of an abiding sense of honor. Ser Whent continued out of love; his love of raising the hackles on a wolf.

Once, the Black Bat had, upon noticing the lack of care she attended upon her gowns, wrapped his white cloak around his head like a Septa, and in a high pitched voice had chastised her, "By the Seven, Lyanna, if this is how you treat your gowns, I dread to see your needlework!" It was an eerily accurate impression of her own Septa, a woman Ser Whent had surely never met before. Of course, "Ozy", as she called him in her head, never would dare share such humor in front of the grizzled Ser Hightower. But between the two of them, he kept her in good cheer and sharper of wit.

Whereas Ser Dayne and Ser Whent were easy for Lyanna to both know and read, Ser Hightower was as fathomless as a weirwood tree, his face carved with age and battles. Whatever was on the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard's mind, it was inaccessible to Lyanna.

She quickly snatched her bowl and spoon before Ser Dayne could set about getting her meal for her, but Ozy guarded the stew and winked at her as he ladled a large portion into her bowl. He knew how it irked her to be served, and so he took every easy opportunity to do so. The man wouldn't have washed her underthings, not that she'd let him, but he'd hold doors and poor drinks for her with smirking abandon.

"Your Prince will not forgive you if you make me fat, Ozy." His lips crinkled into a full smile.

"He'll thank me a for a fat baby dragon, your Grace." Eyes twinkling with mischief, he set to eating his own portion.

"Well he might not come out if he's too large Ozy, did you think of that?" Lyanna snarked, setting to work on her stew. Ser Dayne's eyes shifted over to her again, that unsettling sensation of pity creeping into his expression.

"We may not be midwives, but you're of the North. Starks are made of sterner parts then even a dornish viper. You'll be fine." Ser Whent reached over to pat her silken knee, having correctly assumed that while Lyanna was in good humor, there was an underlying fear of dying in childbed that laced its way through her tone.

Ser Hightower continued to endure, while they all fell into a silence as they ate, each thinking of their silver haired Prince and when he would return.

It was high noon when Lyanna saw the raven sail towards the tower, towards her. She opened her hands out reflexively with desire to receive it, but it flew to the rookery, as she expected.

It was hot, and she was tired, dusty and bored. Her stomach and gown were both taut, slick with sweat between the fabric and her skin. She still lept up from her chair and rushed out the door to climb the stairs up to where she knew the raven was waiting.

Out of breath, and already needing a chamberpot, she had climbed two turns of the round stairs to reach a locked door. Behind her, a Kingsguard made his clanging way up the stairs as well.

Composing herself, she waited and put on her most imperiously demanding face that she could manage while still sweat-soaked and red from exertion. As Ser Dayne's light brown locks and deep violet eyes came into view, she felt ever more determined that this would be the day that she'd no longer play the game of pretending that the world outside of her current whereabouts didn't exist.

"Whatever it is, you'll tell me Ser Dayne. You'll tell me or so help me by the Old Gods and the New I will make you."

He stopped just short of the landing and stood frozen, unsure of testing her mettle.

"Don't think I don't see you looking at me like someone has drowned my favorite kitten, Arthur. You know something. You and all the rest of you, and you're hiding it from me. Rhaegar would do no such thing. So it's going to stop, today. If I am your Queen you will adhere to my authority as such." Ser Arthur twitched, though it was more like he jerked into dissemblance.

"Your Grace if there was anything for you to know-" He began, but Lyanna would have none of it.

"If you want into this rookery, Ser, you will have to remove me. And I will not go quietly." It was a testament to their knowledge of each other that he didn't provide platitudes about how a lady should act, or that she shouldn't concern herself with matters of the realm.

"If it were up to me, I would tell you." He said stonily, gripping his gloved hands so tightly that she could hear the leather squeak in protest.

"Ser Gerold Hightower then?" She replied glibly. Ser Dayne tilted his head in confirmation.

"Very well, I will confront the Lord Commander myself on this matter." Ser Dayne made a move to help her down the stairs, but she swept by him, every inch a Queen.

Determined, she left Ser Dayne scrambling behind her on the stairs and marched into the empty hall, her head swiveling predatorily. A loud thwack pulled her away and she followed the sound out into the practice yard where she had previously learned at Ser Dayne's hand.

Ser Whent and Ser Hightower were in leathers with blunted swords at the ready. While intently focused on each other, they both noticed her entering the yard and Gerold backed up with a nod at Oswell before they both tilted their swords downward and walked towards her.

"My lady," Ser Hightower wiped sweat from his brow and sniffed.

"Your Grace," Ozy managed a mocking bow that made Lyanna want to smile at his cheek. Arthur had caught up with her at this point, and she glanced at the wax sealed missive in his hand that had come from the raven.

"Why don't we all sit in the hall and discuss the recent news from King's Landing, hmm?" She folded her hands primly in front of her, mocking every lady who had ever been so pious as to mean it when they were submissive.

"Your Grace, I'll have Ser Dayne escort you to your rooms, as you should be at rest, and we can go over any news later tonight over-". Ser Hightower's expression was neither surprised nor inconvenienced. It was nothing but steady tolerance, or rather, he was adept at ignoring her outbursts. And to pretend that Lyanna didn't exist but as a task or duty, caused her blood to rush to her ears in rage. He thought he could  _disregard_  her. It rankled, embittering her towards the man. Ser Hightower's use of the honorific "Your Grace" was worse.

_I am not my title. I am not defined by my relation to a man._

"By the Old Gods Gerold, this- whatever this is, it cannot endure. Each day I sit, just the same as you, and wait for him to come back. And with him, perhaps something resembling the truth of what is happening! Do you think that I'm not aware that there are consequences for my disappearance? That I haven't asked any of you, even Rhaegar, what those might be?" She gestured wildly at all of them, whirling around to face Ser Dayne in askance. The oppressive heat made her angrier, and had her body been less unwieldy she would have snatched up a practice sword and berated each of them with its edge.

"Our orders are to keep you safe. He said he would return before you gave birth, milady." The Lord Commander had said those words time and again, and he said them now with a long suffering tone that held belief beyond belief within.

A Prince could not be wrong, you see.

A future could not exist where Rhaegar didn't appear to relieve all of them when he said he would and set the world aright.

"I'll not say that he's not coming, but it is late. And I am not a glass house flower, wilting in the face of adversity. I was born to the north, and the north  _remembers_  that winter is coming, even if you southron lords forget." She paused, her arm wrapped protectively around her girth and leveled a hard glare at Ser Hightower.

"I am also your Queen, and you will arm me. If not with a sword, then with knowledge. And then we will plan, so that when our Prince does return, he will not find me helpless and or worse, dead from childbirth."

"Gerold, I think-"

"No, you do not think!" Ser Hightower whipped his practice sword forward to point at Ser Dayne as he spoke. The Lord Commander's indifference had finally ruptured. "To your room, Your Grace, or I'll have you carried." His voice was scolding and harsh, like she was some  _girl_ , and not someone who had the fortitude, the bravery to run from everyone and everything she had known for love.

"Very well." She acceded tightly to Ser Gerold, hoping that her constricted voice reflected a desire to not be shamefully dragged to her chambers instead of her true feelings, which were of rebellion. She turned, her grey eyes now boring into Ser Dayne's sky-violet ones. If she was anything besides a hypocrite now, she was also a liar.

... _but it cannot change a man's nature._

No one had ever asked a woman if it were true. What was honor to a mother-to-be but whatever promises she made to keep her child safe? The Mother would forgive her, she knew and the Old Gods were of stream, stone and forest. What they desired was the honesty of men, who respected guest right, did not take slaves or kinslay. They did not forgive what they did not disagree with in the first place.

Yes, her first duty was to her child, then to her husband.

"My lords." She mockingly curtseyed to Ser Whent and Ser Hightower, playing up her defeat and how it chafed with narrowed eyes and a huff before she stalked off to her rooms. Let them think her a petulant child if it distracted them from what she must do.

In her head, she quickly assessed where she had placed all the sharp, thin objects like needles and hair pins in her room and was resolved to pick the rookery lock first, and from there, inspect the entrance to Ser Gerold Hightower's room to discern when she should attempt to access its contents.

Ser Dayne followed behind her, a faithful hound, but not to her. She stopped and waited a moment before turning around, so that when she did so, Arthur would be discomfited by the short distance between them.

"Ser, I do not require your company." Her words were a lance, and the Sword of Morning, who had always been courteous, and as affectionate as a warrior could be, winced ever so slightly.

"Yes, but perhaps a game of cyvasse? Rhaegar bade me teach him. I picked it up when I was a ward of House Allyrion at Godsgrace." His attempt at connecting her to the days when her Prince had taught her the strategy game was hamfisted, but he meant well. Cyvasse was easy to learn the rules, but harder to learn how to win. But she had done it, and before long, even Rhaegar would complain that she was more a dragon than he when it came to the game. She'd even played with Ser Dayne before, when everyone was still in agreement not to discuss anything outside the walls of their temporary home.

She hadn't known that it was Arthur who had brought cyvasse into Rhaegar's life, however. And it made her consider that perhaps, Ser Arthur Dayne wanted to be her ally, or her friend, more than he wanted to follow the Lord Commander, who she was beginning to believe followed his own prerogative, and not Rhaegar's.

Decided, she didn't reply, but beckoned him with a single gesture and continued up the stairs.

The Prince had left her a delicately carved set from the markets in Sunspear. He said that Prince Doran himself had a similar copy.

Sitting casually on her sole padded bench, she let Ser Dayne pulled up his own chair while she set the pieces on her side of the board, screen in the middle at the ready.

"Let's see then, Ser Dayne, how good you are at protecting the king." It was a low blow, but she wasn't feeling kind..

"Perhaps I am only good at protecting Princes." He retorted with a gentle smile playing on his lips. Of course he hadn't been there when Aerys had died. And now Rhaegar was the King.

"Maybe in life, but in Cyvasse?" She scoffed, smoothing her skirts before straightening the board tiles. Unlike other cyvasse sets she had seen, this one was made of real stones. The tiles were lapis lazuli from Dorne itself, jade from Yi Ti and carnelian from Essos. Her Prince had told her that one day they would go to all those places on the backs of dragons. At the time, when they lay tangled in their sheets, she thought it a musing said over pillows. A thing a little boy would say when he first learned of dragons.

She wasn't so sure anymore that he didn't mean it.

Lyanna wasn't a meticulous study of men's behavior, but she was trying, now. And part of that involved taking a harder look at the words Rhaegar had said.

She loved him, and he loved her.

But he also had a way of avoiding speaking of his soon to be former wife while at the same time joyfully planning a brother or sister he would give Rhaenys and Aegon. She knew he was hoping for a girl, a Visenya to marry Aegon along with Rhaenys.

It irked her, the idea of her child sharing a partner when he or she came of age. She was one to talk, given that as of yet, Rhaegar had not set Elia aside in the eyes of the Realm.

"Ready, Your Grace?" Ser Dayne had settled across from her, his board set during her short reflection.

"Lyanna. It's Lyanna Targaryen, or my Lady if you must, but I'll not have you refer to me as a Queen if you continue to refuse to obey me as one." Her eyes roved along the board as she moved her first pieces, a Light Horseman, a Spearman and some Rabble.

"The King's order supersedes yours my Lady." His fingers danced behind the screen, moving his soldiers towards hers.

"Throwing him under the horse then?" The trebuchet came next, behind her contingent of armed men. Risky, but she suspected that Ser Dayne himself was more likely to be cautious today.

"It would be a betrayal if I questioned his decisions." She moved her interrogation to new target, as she knew she'd get nowhere undermining Rhaegar's authority, but starting with such barbs could tenderize the meat.

"So whatever it is you know is either too harsh for me to handle, or something he wants kept from me perhaps. Possibly that the war isn't going as well for our side as he'd like. What bannermen are against him besides the Storm Lords? Stark to be sure, since none of you have let me send a rider nor raven to any House, especially my own," her fingers moved pieces left and right, her voice becoming controlled fury as she set about destroying the man in front of her in the only way she could. "My lord father's bannerman have no love for Aerys, and they'll side with father. Probably the Lord of the Eyrie as well, and mayhap the Tully's, but not all of the River Lords. Lord Frey would be last to the fighting fields, I imagine." She armed her trebuchet and guessed at one of Ser Dayne's squares, tile two by three. The range was limited to how close the trebuchet was, and since she did not want Ser Dayne taking that particular piece on her end out of commission, she aimed for just over the wall, striking a Mountain piece and damaging it by half. Unless Ser Dayne garrisoned it with other pieces, it would fall and he would be one natural stronghold short early game. It was too early, however, for him to move anything there unless he wished for her to smash through those troops as well.

"Mountain at half damage." Ser Dayne grunted, placing damage tokens on the respective tile.

"Well, are you going to answer Ser, or are you not capable of performing strategically while in the midst of a simple conversation?" The man rubbed his face before groaning as if he was as long suffering as she. He met her glare with an agitated expression of his own.

"My Lady, if I may, and even if I may not, keep your teeth and claws to yourself. There's not a thing I can do about our circumstances until there's a raven from the King telling me otherwise."

"Forgive me Ser Dayne, I would have trimmed my nails and muzzled myself had I realized you were so poorly armed." As for Lyanna, she did not stop playing the game just because Ser Dayne could not perform under pressure. She alighted upon her elephants and Crossbowman, aiming to make sure that any hits to the square they occupied would be absorbed by the elephants while she lit his borders aflame. She sent some Rabble up to the screen between them, where next turn they would pick at whatever Ser Dayne had stationed on the front lines, if anything at all. If not, the Rabble would needle away points from the kingsguard until Ser Dayne did something about it.

"I have been nothing but kind to you, my Lady." He implored, as he launched two catapults at an empty square, but one that she had been planning to move troops into on the next turn. She would move them there anyway, assuming that the Sword of Morning would think the area clear.

"The Mother weeps for you then. Perhaps you should pray to the Smith to put your world aright." Her voice was mocking; the Old Gods cared little for the constraining walls of the sept, with gems inlaid into each step and altar. A true place of worship was the cold ground of a godswood in front of the blood red and ivory white of the heart tree. It was where prayers were truly heard and answered. And trees could not be corrupted with bribes or excess of wealth. No, even Rhaegar could not convince her that the Seven were all that was needed.

"I pray to the Father and the Warrior for my Prince's safe return." Her second trebuchet fell to two of Ser Dayne's elephants, but in turn revealed their location.

"Your King." She moved her Dragon forward to the wall and waited, hands clasped in her lap, grey eyes studying the man before her. Ser Arthur Dayne was in his prime as a fighter and a man. From the crown of his head to the well soled boots he wore, a vision of what every knight in Westeros wished to be. The honor alone of the kingsguard was enough, but to be declared the best swordsman alive in the known world sat well on his sandy brown hair, violet eyes, golden tanned skin and sharp features.

While the northern parts of Dorne, including Starfall, were not invaded by the Rhoynar, inevitably their blood made their way their through alliances and marriage. Ser Dayne was not rough-hewn as some of the Andals and the First Men were, but more of a finely cut piece of granite.

Still, Rhaegar was white marble compared to the chipped Ser Dayne. She wondered which scars the Brotherhood had given him. And she was more thankful that none of them were from fighting her kin.

"You're correct, Your Grace. My apologies." He looked lost then, forlorn. The world was changing around both of them, and for anyone but a regent it meant that those changes were more or less out of his control. He was also being soundly trounced at Cyvasse.

A trickle of compassion entered her heart for Ser Dayne, before she pressed back against it. Doing what she needed required that she maintained composure.

Or did it.

Because she was going to leave. Before her child came. She would take all her fine jewels with her, all those given by her husband, and sell everything that wasn't an heirloom to buy passage on the river that led to Yronwood, and from there, Essos. She'd send a raven to her Prince as soon as she landed and when the Realm was again at peace, she'd return home.

All the little details on the hows of the situation would be managed later. Finding out the state of the Realm, and then leaving were her two goalposts.

She'd thought that staying consistent of temperament would be best, but perhaps, what would be better is to acquiesce, but only slightly. Give the impression that she'd ebbed in strength in the face of isolation.

"He'll come back." Gently, she reached across the side of the board to rest her fingertips on the man's knee. He couldn't feel it through the armor, but the message was received.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Towers are boring, yo.

The taut knot of pain sat heavy in her chest throughout the day. At breakfast it forced her to consciously swallow each flavorless bite of bread and preserves. The warm milk that had come from the single goat at the Tower felt clotted and thick. It reminded her at once of blood and she threw the rest of the food away, begging off feeling ill from the child before retreating to her room.

As she trudged up the stairs, every part of her ached. Her feet were swollen, her body heavy and the need to cry while having to repress it made her eyes sting. She reached her room, out of breath and gulping back her sadness before peering inside through watery eyes.

Everything was as she left it. It's only that it felt false. All the months spent here washed away in the truth. The furniture, clothing and bedding were foreign, and the red stone of the room was a cage. Her storm-cloud eyes locked onto the bed.

The top sheet was red silk, as Rhaegar preferred. So very red.

_Fire and Blood._

_The south is no place for you._

She resisted pulling the sheet off, instead sitting on the bed and running her fingers absently over its softness. It was the only thing that felt cool in the heat of the desert air. Very few things here were like her home.

There was something more to the north than its cold. The north had a way of stilling the passion and pain of death, transmuting it into a primeval and harmonious truth; death was inevitable, life was ephemeral, and honor was abiding. When men died by the sword, the land quickly ate their lifesblood as though it fell upon an altar for sacrifice. Lyanna swore it went straight to the weirwoods, a thousand and one veins dug into the ground, pulsing with freely given oblation.

What men of the north feared wasn't blood or death, nor fire, but the Long Night. The cold winter snows howling down from the wall and weaving their way towards the holdfasts of men. The things that lived and died and were already dead in the darkness, weaving their broken way through the Ironwood forests to prey on the less prepared. For the Starks, winter was always coming, and to be the wardens of the north, the men who stood behind the wall and before the Realm was a duty that made them hard. They had to be. Harder than the Boltons, who were once Kings and never let the Starks forget-  _Our blades are sharp-_ , and their cousins the Karstarks. The Manderlays were accepted in the north, but they weren't true northerners who were bred to know how deep and long the gelid shadow would be each time winter came.

In this room, this place, she was striped of northern protections as well as her responsibilities as a northerner. She could feel the emptiness, see it when she gazed out the window at the mountains, where nothing grew. There were no Gods here.

Whether the Old Gods thought favorably of the Starks was irrelevant. The Gods were there through all trials and tribulations, coalesced in the ground and blood of the First Men. Without them, she was an insignificant tendril of humanity that reached and reached for what identity she had left at Winterfell. Belonging's only replacement was a blaze of awareness of just how alone she was.

_The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives._

She'd heard it from Brandon, from father, from Old Nan. The assumption, the security of her family and what it meant for her, was a given.

But then she'd broken into the Lord Commander's quarters. She'd pulled out letters, one by one, scanning them for relevant information while she kept an ear on the three kingsguard practicing in the yard.

When she'd seen it, the single incriminating strip of paper with her husband's personal seal, she'd almost torn the parchment in half, its edges crinkled between her fingers. She wasn't sure if she had put everything back the way she'd found it, hastily shoving it all into the locked drawer she had picked open with hair pins.

Once, she'd been fevered and hot as children often found themselves, and at the time it felt as though everything happening was a dream. Every movement of hers was slow, while the world spun quickly around her. All words from her mother and Old Nan passed through her head and failed to be sensical.

She felt much the same, making it back to her room after reading each scrap of paper. The walk took a lifetime, but the sounds of Ser Whent's laughter, Ser Dayne's admonishments to him as well as Ser Hightower's quick barks were a constant assault her senses couldn't process.

As the door closed to her room, she lay down in the stillness and heat, her heart empty. She lost time then, shadows from the dying sun arriving unnoticed. Blink, and another beam of light shrank. Blink, and her family died.

She begged off dinner for sickness, whispering through the door to Ser Dayne that yes, she was alright, no he did not need to come in and check on her, just an upset stomach, and of course she'd be at breakfast in the morning. Her hands had pressed against the door in the darkness, every grain of of wood, every divot, alive under her skin. How could she feel at all, when all that possessed her were thoughts of Brandon, wild, skilled Brandon who had come for her, and had died demanding her return? And her father. He had come for his son, and perished with him by fire.

She burned with them and was strangled by her tears, over and over. It wrenched her heart that she'd left all her family at odds before riding away. Including her father.

Brandon's brash nature had grated against hers so many times she believed she wouldn't miss him when she'd left Winterfell. She hadn't while she'd been here, not really. Rhaegar had made the days here bliss with his presence and the liberties he'd given her. Brandon, her father, Ned and Benjen didn't matter; they couldn't do a thing about her marriage now. The impossibility of going back, or changing anything made considering their opinions on the matter irrelevant.

Not until Brandon was gone and there were no more opportunities to reconcile with her brother. It wasn't meaningless then. After the tournament at Harrenhal she'd mostly ignored Brandon, given his behavior. And that distance, the judgement she held for him was the last thing she'd let him know from her.

As for her father, he hadn't always stopped her from her swordwork or riding, but as she moved ever closer to flowering, he'd slowly cleaved off her lessons with her brothers. His attempts to replace them with supposedly worthier skills had resulted in her rebellion, which found her alienated from Rickard. Towards the end of her days in Winterfell, they were barely on speaking terms. She'd stopped seeking him out when he agreed to the betrothal to Robert Baratheon.

It felt like their deaths were the price for freedom, and it was too high. And too late.

She wasn't sure if Ned would forgive her, or if he should. Either way, going back to Winterfell was an impossibility. So she let the truth that she was responsible for Brandon and her father's death weigh on her like a yoke. While she couldn't have predicted that King Aerys would have killed her family, he did it because of her actions, and the punishment should fit the crime.

Leaving Westeros altogether until Rhaegar came to claim her was the right thing to do. She would rather face her husband than her family. If it had been just her, it would have been the coward's way out to run away. But, as she wrapped an arm protectively across her belly, she knew that she needed to defend her child, Rhaegar's child. Even from her own kin.

In the morning her pale face showed none of the puffy skin she had felt when she had brushed her fingertips over her cheeks to wipe the tears away as she sobbed that night. All that was left was the gloss of yesterday's tears. A splash of cool water helped calm the redness around her eyes and the mirror revealed the face of a ten and six year old woman. Too young to look truly haggard, but old enough to be concerned that she hide her pain from the men around her well enough.

After she abandoned breakfast and pointedly ignored all the Targaryen red that surrounded her, she set to work on leaving. Staring hollowly at her room, she decided grief was a powerful tool. Loss sharpened her instincts for what mattered.

No where was safe for the woman she was. Her name and role in the war was a burden on her and her child. Her husband likely had intended on returning to the Tower, but he hadn't. And the last message that had been delivered stated he was on his way to the Trident to meet Robert Baratheon in open battle.

Since the kingsguard wouldn't leave, and most definitely wouldn't pretend that she was another person, or even put those damnable white cloaks in storage, it wasn't safe to stay when the outcome of the realm hung on tenterhooks.

Detachedly, she noted that if Rhaegar fell, some lordling or other would inevitably come to the Tower of Joy. If he didn't, some lordling could still come, probably before him.

The problem with the kingsguard was that they took their oaths technically, without question. It was clear that the safest choice was to leave and go into hiding, but because Rhaegar hadn't told them they could, they all stayed. The function of the kingsguard was to protect, not to advise and make decisions. And Rhaegar had put all of them in a position where they could not functionally do what was best for the Realm, lest they break vows.

She knew that if someone had explained it to Rhaegar, told her husband that the deaths of Elia and her children were not necessarily casualties of war but a warning that whoever sat on the throne wouldn't tolerate a single drop of Targaryen blood in Westeros, he'd listen. He'd make plans appropriately.

But fate, via his own father's poor choices, had robbed him of council. Rhaegar marched to the Trident with allies yes, but Lyanna knew a thing or two about what injustice was. How it made you ache and sting with desire to right whatever was wrong. The North and their allies in the Riverlands had lost in one fell swoop every reason to uphold the Targaryen dynasty when Aerys had burned their heirs and lords. The insanity of that decision would mean that the North would commit fully and deeply to the fight. Her older brother Ned, though he hadn't learned to be the heir of Winterfell, still had Stark honor, along with the close support of his friend Robert Baratheon and Jon Aryn, Lord of the Vale.

And that was the crux of it right there. Robert was obsessive in the things he was passionate about, which included her. In the interests of getting to know her betrothed, she had asked veiled questions of Ned to discern what kind of man he was. Robert was a skilled fighter and Ned said he put all of his weight into his blows. Many of his kills in dealing with the Hill Tribes of the Eyrie had been with his hammer, shattering ribs and sternums with a single swing. Her brother had not realized that Robert's body count was as unimpressive as his ability to hold his ale. What she heard, was that Robert was a killer, and he liked the glory of killing. Her own family had always swung the sword without hesitation when honor called for it, and taught that respecting life was integral to respecting death. Robert's choices weren't similarly motivated, but because Robert hadn't yet stepped outside the bounds of honor, beyond his bastard at the Eyrie, Ned couldn't see that his friend was tempramental Wildfire waiting to be shaken the wrong way.

Ned had said that Robert's brothers were nothing like Robert himself, Stannis being stern and unyielding, while Renly was a sweet, cheerful boy who loved to dress up, had no interest in learning and only passing interest in swinging a weapon. He liked to jape about 'Stannis the Stick' and 'natty Renly'. What Lyanna heard was that Robert had no respect for his brothers. That he was a man who put his needs and his concept of honor first, before family. Family and honor were not intrinsic, but there seemed to be little rational explanation for Robert's poor relationship with his brothers beyond his own single-minded beliefs on what was worthy of respect, and what wasn't. A man who designed his own moral code that hinged on fulfilling his desires first, however gratuitous, wasn't any better Aerys. Perhaps he wouldn't light lords on fire, but selfishness will out, and harm others.

Yesterday in her hand, she held a missive with a declaration of war from the Lord of the Eyrie, and the first crime of King Aerys and Prince Rhaegar had been her kidnapping. Not the burning of the lords and their heirs. It was telling then, that while Jon Arryn may have put out the call for the Riverlands troops, as Ned had done the same, it was the House Baratheon that determined how far they were all willing to go to see justice.

Maybe somewhere inside Robert, the blood of the dragon was there too, their line and ownership of the Storm Lands having been started by a bastard Targaryen centuries ago.

_Ours is the Fury._

Robert would come here if he knew that's where she was, or he'd send someone. He may even kill Rhaegar. She knew he'd seek her husband on the battlefield for more than the obvious reason that Rhaegar stood in the way of their victory. Robert had been given Lyanna, promised. A man as single minded as Robert would never forget or forgive Rhaegar crowning Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty, and somewhere in him, he must suspect that she had been complicit in the end. It must be easier for him then, to push his own narrative that Lyanna was taken.

Not that anyone knew different. But she could imagine telling Ned that she had gone willingly, only for Ned to do the 'honorable' thing and throw her over a horse before taking a ship directly to Winterfell. Either Robert would insist the wedding go through, Rhaegar's child in her aside, or he'd consider her an oathbreaker, a traitor. Even though it had never been her promise that had bound Lyanna to him.

He may even kill her child, for the sin of being a dragon.

The very thought made blood rush to her ears and she felt the babe stir and kick, almost as if he shared her fear.

She was confident in her ability to plan and execute her escape. Her guards, while excellent swordsman, were not prepared to deal with a girl who had managed to abscond from her own locked room in Winterfell with impunity. And, she was handy with a sword and a dagger enough to take care of herself. Better yet, if all anyone saw was a knocked up whore, they'd be less likely to accost her.

Nonetheless, the riskiest portion of her plan was relying on her ability to reach a city that was far enough away from the kingsguard, and big enough to disappear within before giving birth. Even then, birth without a maester was a great risk. But it was a danger she was already facing while staying here. The thought steeled her, gave her strength in the belief that she was right to go. To stay meant that at worst, she could die in childbirth with no one here to save her.

It was going to get harder from here on out to simply exist. She was sure she knew what being alone for so long would feel like, how she would make it, and what possibilities for work existed for her. But even though she had wanted the leeway the smallfolk she'd grown up with had for so long, it was different to want, to idolize that kind of life than to possess it. It wasn't about being able to ride or fight when she wanted now, but to protect her unborn child. Finding the right path would be one of opportunity, she thought.

Lyanna collected all her useful items from the room and piled them on the bed, still mulling over the hows of her plan. A sewing kit that she'd begrudgingly taken from home because the bone needles were from her mother would come in handy. Her embroidery wasn't pretty, but that hardly mattered for her plan to look and act like the smallfolk.

A few daggers littered the bed, and she'd even managed to have a shield in her room. The paint was scuffed, but the tree still stood proud on the front, laughing.

At first her idea had only been to protect her father's bannerman. That was why she'd waded into the bullies attacking the crannogman. But if she asked herself now, it was because she felt icy rage at seeing the slightly older and better equipped boys pushing around the smaller man. That injustice, the sight of Howland's three-pronged spear lying discarded as he took lumps on unarmored parts of his body from tourney practice swords fueled her fury as she shouted at the squires.

Despite the heir to Greywater Watch's inability to defend himself in that moment, there were no weak houses in the north. The southron lords could laugh and disparage the short 'bog devils' for their supposedly cowardly tactics, all they liked. It didn't make them weak or any less dangerous.

Once, her father had taken Benjen and Lyanna when they were young, Ned having just been fostered. A group crannogmen met them at the edge of the marshes, appearing from the mists as if they could see right through the gray fog. Carefully they'd picked their footing through the marsh, the horses left behind. Their guide hadn't told them to be silent, yet everyone in the party whispered to one another, unwilling to disturb whatever lived in the waters.

She remembered with fondness the moss and the strange plants creeping down from the branches of dead trees that were ever sinking into the dark waters. There were ripples of creatures that stirred and swam just out of the corner of her eyes. In its stillness, in the smell of musky decay, was the makings of a hard life that Lyanna understood.

It was Benjen who didn't listen. But it wasn't him who paid the price.

Distracted by the soft sounds of flowing water and chirping of frogs, she didn't notice that Benjen had reached out of the side to touch something. It was the shout and jerking of the boat that caused her to turn and see in a flash one of men of Winterfell snatch Benjen's hand. Amidst the flurry she saw a streak of color attach itself to the man's arm before dropping into the water.

The boat erupted into action. Benjen was tossed back into father's arms, Lyanna herself was plastered against the wooden side as the crannogman shifted over to snatch the man's bitten arm and examine it. Rickard was squeezing her brother tightly, in concern and anger, while Benjen was pressed against him, white-faced.

"We're too far from the castle," their guide started pulling out a dagger and a rope, passing off his torch to an open hand. The man who had bravely, foolishly saved the third son of Rickard Stark tensed as other men gripped his arm in place for what was to come. Ropes were tightened around at the juncture above his elbow, sleeve peeled back from his wrist to expose the bite, which glistened with venom. Already it was red and puckered, waiting for the kiss of the dagger to cut it out.

Neither of the two Stark's forgot the sound of the man's screams as the crannogman carved and sliced and peeled the poison out.

Their father did not cover their ears or eyes. It would be unbecoming of a Stark.

Their time at Greywater Watch had been short. Benjen's mistake hung over both of their heads and instead of his usual pestering questions about fighting and monsters in the swamp, his face was stricken pale with guilt. They wandered the halls together, Lyanna shuffling behind in the shadow of her brother's disappointment. She spent a little time with Howland, as he tried to assure Benjen that it was a cruel land, and accidents were prone to happen. But as he spoke, she could see the words only hardened her brother's determination that it was his responsibility to mitigate those kinds of accidents, not cause them. It was no wonder after that, that he began to speak of going to the Wall someday.

No more than two days before they set out again, the swampy waters were bleeding back into land. It was harder to remember exactly what the moving castle was like, but impossible to forget its inhabitants, including the snake and of course, Howland Reed.

She caressed the white shield and its tree, surmising that this was where it had all gone awry, or right, depending on interpretation.

_Exhausted from the tourney and not unaware of the King's mad and roving eye that was often rooted to her form while she fought, she fled. Her purpose had been served; the knight's terms were declared and their squires chastised._

_Hefting the shield with a grunt, she swung her leg up on the branch of the tree. She didn't know why she couldn't just leave the thing, instead feeling some mischievous part of her insisting that she make the shield less accessible once found. She wanted it to mock whoever found it, the smiling face of the weirwood perched above, delighting in the deception._

_The branches were weaker than the ironwoods and weirwood at Winterfell, but nothing broke under her sure footsteps. Finally she reached a good height, triple a tall man's length, and wedged the shield deep into the crevice of a branch off the main trunk. The climb down was quick, no longer being one handed, and she landed with a bounce, her breath huffing out all at once._

_The double click of a man's tsking at her had her whirling around, dagger out._

" _You're not wearing your crown." His smirk was arrogant, but an undercurrent of amusement played at the corners of his lips._

" _Wolves don't wear crowns." Feigning control over the situation, Lyanna tucked her dagger away as if she wouldn't have to use it. Not that she could have done much against a competent swordsman who had the drop on her for strength, such as Prince Rhaegar. In those situations, it was best to prepare run, like she was doing now._

" _You know my father suspects The Laughing Knight is here to kill him. Are you?" The silver haired prince abruptly switched subjects and began circling towards her, his lazy gait hiding a serpentine grace. She already knew him for a dragon, and not a mad or a stupid one._

" _Who says I'm the laughing knight? The Master of Whispers?" She tilted her head, scrunched her eyes and scoffed, allowing herself to believe a lie that_ she  _certainly wasn't the knight in question. Knights were men, and the technicality allowed her some semblance of dissembling._

_Rhaegar had made it to the tree, his hands rubbing the bark as he looked up at the shield that was guiltily staring at him with a wide smile. He grinned back and then turned his eyes to her, which looked almost lavender in the sun but for the flecks of dark indigo peeking out at the seams. His eyes were much like him, as she found out later. Silver and shining with his birthright and all that it entailed, he could capture anyone with a song as he had caught her the evening previous. Yet underneath lurked the darkness of his ilk. Madness may have not haunted him, but the tragedy of it, the_ Fire and Blood,  _was there waiting. Rhaegar was a man on the perpetual cusp of a storm._

" _I guessed," the grin was back, and it pried a small smile from her lips._

" _I think you're not a good guesser then." She snarked, arms crossing in unconscious defensiveness._

" _And I think I'd know the woman I crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty anywhere and in any attire." He chortled, stepping forward to close the distance between them._

" _But really, it is was a splendid thing to see you swinging a sword," she was stock still when he reached up and moved the hair from her brow. His touch made her frown, and she wondered if he expected her to be flattered with all the attention he'd given her so far._

_Up close she had a chance to see every nuance of the Prince. What struck her was that his skin was as pale as her own. Those of Valyria, even most of Westeros, had little in common with the muted grays, browns and blacks of the First Men. Yet, the blue of his veins protruding delicately from his hand mirrored her own translucent skin. The romantic notion that they were opposing sharp edges of the same blade struck her. Quickly she pushed that emotion to the side with a swallow, his attention rapt on her blossoming discomfort._

" _Forgive me," he then bowed to her suddenly, his composed expression faltering so briefly she almost missed the twitch to his brows._

" _My father won't hear of this, however, I'll need one thing in return." Again the darkness of his eyes came into focus, and the air around her became fraught with tension. Lyanna thought it was her own fear of being exposed as The Laughing Knight, but later she knew it was the thin but tenacious pull of destiny that was wrapping around them both._

In her hands she held the many letters Rhaegar had asked for in return for his silence on her identity at the Tournament. It was hard to be angry with her husband. He'd wanted to know her, to find a wife he could be happy with and to bear him more children. She'd been more a child then, rather than a woman, entranced with the secrecy of it all and the machinations required to make it work. And of course, she hadn't known his intent from the start.

The bold manipulation was forgiven, but not forgotten, later when it all came to light that from the beginning he meant to marry her.

From the first, love wasn't much of a thought in her mind. Only that a man didn't seem to think it odd that she could use a sword, or ride better than most men. He wanted to hear about the challenges she faced at home and how she would train in secret, in the crypts, careful to not hit a statue of her ancestors with her practice sword.

And no one cared about these simple but important things, but for Rhaegar.

When love was cultivated from the attenuate soil of her resistance to conform, it was survival and need to rebel that drove her to embrace it. Going to him was a necessity, the consequences an afterthought. All the careful messages sent from ravens kept at Castle Cerwyn, delivered to her by a merchant who was convinced she was a simple errand girl for a cadet branch Northern man who was secretly conversing with a Lady in a minor house situated in the Stormlands, were torn open by her greedy hands. Her reply was sent back via the same merchant, to castle Cerwyn and onward to a minor house in the Stormlands where someone, perhaps Rhaegar himself would receive the letter, starting the process all over again.

Even at the time, she didn't ponder how tenuous and dangerous her liaison with the Crown Prince was. Not her impending betrothal, his marriage to a Martell, nor the ever spiralling madness of the King were obstacles that could not be overcame. So long as her letters came, there was a different world outside the one she pretended to live in every day. In that world, the Prince respectfully set aside Elia Martell, a woman he did not love and who did not love him, married her, and somehow even when he became King, he would have time for her. The only good thing about being Queen would be that she could ride and shoot, with no one to stop her. Granted, it was all a childish day dream now.

When the time drew so near that she believed he would be too late before she was sent off to be married against her will, he asked that she come. There was nothing vital to her to leave behind at Winterfell, besides Benjen. And while he merited a parting word, she didn't enlighten him on her true reasons for leaving. Clearly he saw she wasn't only running away, but running towards something. She still couldn't tell her brother about the silver Prince who loved her,  _her,_ and all her iron will housed in pale skin and dark accoutrement.

Rhaegar filled an emptiness in her heart she knew hadn't been there before him. A dragon-shaped space that beckoned him to nest in it. While he was there, so was she, more present as the she-wolf than she'd ever felt. Perhaps it was all the sword practices, or the riding and archery. Maybe it was in the times where he'd play on the harp that stood dusty and unused in her room. Or, she feared, it was his darkness and his passion that made her less one-dimensional, made her real. His optimism for the future didn't go away even when his eyes were dark with pain, and likewise his sadness and frustration didn't disappear when he smiled with love for her. Her husband was a man of many facets, and she had yet to see them all or what her image looked like gazing back from each surface of him.

Nonetheless, when he left for battle, extricating himself tooth and claw from her pithy center, something more ragged was left. Rhaegar's ghost was still there, silver hair disappearing around the corners of her periphery. Her fear now was that he would never leave her mind, and if she lost him for good, she'd be left with the pale ghoul of him that whispered to her at night about prophecy and destiny.

The worst, deepest hurt came from the acknowledgement that what she'd done had killed her family. While she did love Rhaegar, if there had been no child she would take it all back. She'd have found another way to be close to him without bringing about the deaths of so many. If only she'd been inclined to be stubbornly against him as she had been with all other men of marriageable age. She couldn't fathom one single rational reason why she'd be intrigued enough to agree with his bargain that day. Because truly, he couldn't have been sure she was The Laughing Knight. There was minimal risk that the King would have believed him; everyone knew Aerys was suspicious that his own son was working against him. Whether it was true or not didn't matter when it came to a King's madness.

While lost in her thoughts, despondency took her as she marveled at how utterly trapped she was now. More than she'd been before. Sorting through her things and packing them into a spare saddle bag in her closet, her fingers closed around the hilt of a small dagger.

The crannogman had been able to save the man's hand, even if he couldn't properly hold a sword in it after. She looked at the palm of her hand, wondering if love was a poison.

_Can I cut him out?_

Even dragons bleed the same.

_Fire and blood._

Tilting the dagger down, the point dug in, stinging and then aching as she drew the blade over the lightly calloused skin. The liquid beads popped out one by one, red and swollen. Rhaegar wasn't inside any of them.

Sighing, she pressed her palm on the bed, letting the blood seep into the sheets. It would be brown tomorrow, the stain, but for now it only looked moist, and she wouldn't be here then. Only the stain would remain.

Everything was in order, which was just as well given that her hand still prickled with pain and packing more things would both stain them and irritate her. She only needed a short amount of time to grieve for the impending loss of comfort the roof and things under it provided her. No, her largest concern on the journey would be water. The waterskins laying deflated on her bed taunted her with their empty bladders, but better she had better take them empty rather than fill them up and be caught.

Glancing around the room, scanning for any missing items, she let her gaze fall onto her own face staring back from her only mirror. She could still see the etched out form of Lyanna Stark the wolf maid. Still see  _her._ The girl become woman who had dared to do things that men told her she could not. To have a love that was forbidden and dangerous. The unbeaten eyes she saw reflected back at her, all but mired in a face that was lined with exhaustion, were strong despite all of that.

Standing, following her own hooded and beckoning gaze over, she stopped before her full reflection. Instinctively, she smiled then, and it looked toothy instead of innocent. A little bit wiser than yesterday.

"You'll be wantin' some water aye?" The sun-soaked skin of the merchant in front of her looked leathery with use, like a saddle or leather armor.

"And food for two days worth." Without explanation she passed him her spare dagger, hilt first. The man made raspy, throaty noises as he examined it before turning to note the empty waterskins she carried with. Her horse shifted from foot to foot, impatiently sweating in the noonday sun. Lyanna was also soaked in sweat, her recently dyed auburn hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks. The cape and hood were no help with the sheer heat of the desert, but they kept her skin from crisping like the man in front of her.

"I'll give you a single skin full, for all your empty. Two day and night's rations for the dagger-"

"That dagger is worth fifteen dragons, and we both know it." She hissed angrily. The man only shrugged and gestured to the wasteland before him.

"You'll let me know when you find fifteen dragons out here, you ken?"

"Four day rations, and fourteen dragons  _back_."

"I ain't saying it to be cruel lass, but do you see a city anywhere?" He gestured again to the red landscape dust swirling around them. There were mountains on the left and right, in the middle where they stood, a road. If it could be called that. Mostly it was land devoid of large rocks stretching and winding out into the blurry distance.

"Kingsgrave is less than a few hours south. Four days and night's rations, seven dragons back." She said, her tone conveying the finality of her offer. He chuckled, squinting up at her as she sat astride the horse she had led silently through the small paddock and out into the still night air just seven hours previous.

"Girl you're lucky you've run into me at all out here in this wasteland. You wouldn't be askin' me for trade if you were willing to go into the town," he eyed her up, letting his gaze drop to her swollen belly. "Running from a husband now, who'll be looking for you. Say seven dragons back, two days rations and when your lad come a-callin' I won't be the one to tell him I seen you."

Lyanna inwardly winced at the man's deduction. He wasn't wrong per se. It was better to let him think it was that than the truth. She also noticed that while he spoke the common tongue, his accent placed him here, and hers… well it was going to be something she'd have to watch carefully when she made it to the small port on the edge of the river.

"My two empty skins for your full one, four days food," she raised her hand showing four fingers in emphasis, "for the dagger and  _six_  dragons back to me." The man considered for only a moment before he grunted in acknowledgement and started digging through his small cart for her share of the trade, tucking in the dagger as he pulled out bread, dried meat and a few wrinkly apples.

"Not sure where you're headed, but you'll want to stay clear of the river south of Kingsgrave. There's minor fightin' and men moving in this pass between the mountains. If you're travelin' alone," he eyed her again, not quite sympathetically, but acknowledging that he might as well offer her what information he could.

"If not south, and I can't go north…" Lyanna griped the reigns and craned her neck to look ahead of her, as if she could see anything beyond the silvery mirage of the horizon.

"A goat path, take you to Blackmont, if you follow it all the way. It ain't used by many, but seein' that it's on the other side of the mountains, that part of Dorne has been keepin' to itself 'sides sendin' out men to fight for the Dragons. It's the damn soldiers in the eastern ports, buying up all the goods from the Free Cities." He angrily gesticulated with the bread in one hand, upset about his limited ability to trade for the finer goods of the east.

Finishing packing away her food in a threadbare sack, he slipped off the waterskins before attaching a full one to her horse. When she heard the clink of the coin she held out her hand to receive it, pocketing it in a second, empty purse she'd brought. She'd learned that from Brandon, when he would go to drink in the south. Her brother would pretend to be a vassal lord from the edge of nowhere at taverns, his purse filled with copper pennies and a silver stag or two, while his real purse often held dragons. It had saved him when he was scouted out as being highborn by the innkeep. Instead he would pour the poorer contents of his second purse out with an exclamation that it was 'all I have!' Grumbling, they'd take his pay, feeling cheated out of a dragon or two.

"So this path then?" She tried to sound in control, but she was honestly frightened of taking the alternative path. Blackmont was usually accessed by the port at Starfall, and she speculated that it would generally be a three to four day ride to cross through the mountains if she went with the goat path.

But if she were measuring the risks, she'd rather not run into soldiers, bannerman of Dorne or any Lords versus having to watch her step on a riskier trek. If she gave birth at any point in the next week, she would either be found out or suffer without a maester. In a way, going to Blackmont was the better option because it would be so unexpected.

She was still considering while the man explained how to find the trail up ahead, nestled between two small peaks. It would require her to dismount to enter the trail, but once she had passed a set of switchbacks, the path would be winding, but not steep. He also said that about mid way there was a side trail that would lead her to a set of springs tucked into a small valley. The water would still be surrounded by very little plant life for food, but it would replenish the waterskin for the second leg of her journey. Her horse would have to make do on the brush that sprouted higher up in the mountains, despite the still arid heat.

Ready, and armed with further assurances that the man she had traded with would say nothing, or at least say nothing for long enough for her to be free of Westeros, she dug her heels into her mount. Even as the sun beat down from its place in the west, she thought that the desert, with its promise of freedom, had never looked so beautiful.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the guest on FF.net who commented that Aerys, Elia and her children died after Rhaegar in the books. Yes, you’re correct. My goal was to not change Lyanna’s personality, but her circumstances. I thought that she’d perhaps be spurred into leaving vs. staying if she knew her brother, father and the King were dead. If I was her, I’d probably throw myself on the mercy of my family by getting on a boat and sailing to the manderlay’s post haste. But, it makes sense that Lyanna as a sixteen year old would think that her family might not stand by her. Hell, she didn’t stand by them. I also assume that she had to fall in love with Rhaegar at some point and that she wasn’t stupid enough for it to take a couple days at a tourney. Hence the letters. So given the needs of teenage girls, having been one, she could stand to be obsessed with one person and his attention to the neglect of all else. Like not talking to her family before she left, leading her to realize that when she loses Rhaegar, she’ll realize how horrible her behavior was. But it won’t drive her to make amends, because of pride, the issue of accountability for her family’s death and shame. The adolescent angst along with hormonal pregnancy is real, ya’ll.
> 
> Also, no, she did not cut her hand to provide any kind of diversion or deceit for the kingsguard.
> 
> As for the mountains, think Utah going into Colorado.
> 
> Regarding how the timeline of Aerys death has switched as well, I’ve made it so that Tywin went through the gates of King’s Landing as normal (but ahead of time) and did his usual slaughter. Yes, the Mountain still killed Elia and children at Tywin’s behest. However, it’s played off as an error and the “perpetrators” are dealt with (men who are definitely not the Mountain). This as well as as of yet unknown letters between Tywin and Rhaegar that pledge Tywin’s support to Rhaegar after Aerys is dealt with, point to a deeper betrayal. Rhaegar expected Tywin to support him, but it came down to whether the Lannisters put a Queen on the throne or not. Rhaegar refused to marry Cersei when Tywin offered, without explanation (Lyanna is married to him, but he can’t reveal that because it’s definitely not safe), not necessarily understanding how deep the wound that Aerys cut was when he called Tywin a servant. So Tywin is still a traitorous fiend, just doubly so.
> 
> There are some quotes from True Detective and parts of the books. Maybe a few other quotes from poems as well? Idk, can’t remember.

The sun was fierce and scorching.

 

She knew in her head what it was like outside in Dorne; the open windows of the Tower had brought languid, teasingly slow breezes filled with dust. A warning of what it could be like. She was so very lucky that the false spring and winter, though its grip wasn’t tight, still coalesced around the mountains of Dorne. 

 

The experience now was nothing like it had first been on the road. And there was so much more to loathe than the heat. 

 

What the merchant hadn’t said, was how thin the air would be on her trek. And then the blisters on her feet in places she’d never gotten them before from stepping up and up and up. How much energy it took to put one foot before the other and continue walking, even as boredom ate at her and the height she was at made her feel light headed. 

 

He didn’t talk about how beautiful it was either, how the mountains rose gloriously upwards and into the distance. Fallen, tilted stones permanently embraced each other, their disarray a harsh, ancient reminder that the earth lived through greater upheavals than man. The layers of striation were distracting from the trail. She wanted to count them, the thin red and thick tan lines, find out why they were stacked or tossed about like so many bricks. More than that, she wanted to take a break every few minutes from the discomfort of walking. 

 

But of course, she couldn’t. Each plodding step took her further away from being brought back.

 

The horse was downright useless but for carrying her packs, and it slowed her ascent such that she could swear she would have been halfway to Blackmont a day ago had she been on the horse with a stable road. Reaching the spring in the small valley had been a sour achievement. She was halfway now, yes, but only half way after more than two days of walking. 

 

It was impossible to be sure if anyone was behind her. She couldn’t hear much of anything but the light wind and rustling brush. She’d tested her voice’s echo between the peaks, which quickly dissipated into the large, empty space around her. If anyone was coming and there was no visual of the trail behind her, she would only barely have minutes before they’d be upon her. The thought was worrying at first, but as the days passed, the heat and ache in her body muted those concerns. If someone was on the trail, they’d be on the trail and at that point she’d have to pray to the Old Gods and maybe even the Seven it wasn’t a Kingsguard or a bandit. 

 

Camping the night previous had been hard. Had she been a maid, with no child ready to burst her at the seams, it would have been rough, but nothing like this. It was mind numbing, the pressure in her abdomen, swelling feet, the beginnings of dehydration. And it was a wondrous miracle that her womb’s water hadn’t broken from all the stress. The dragon inside her rolled and kicked as she walked, and her stomach felt bruised as she gently laid on her side on the cloak she’d brought with. 

 

It was quiet after dark, and she didn’t fear lighting a fire from some of the spindly shrubs she had collected to do so. It was also cold, but the ground had more heat lingering within it than expected. The only irritation was that as soon as she’d taken the saddle off the horse, the mare had rolled her sweat covered back in the dirt, promising Lyanna an extra half hour tomorrow brushing it out again with clumps of dead grass balled up to excise the dirt. 

 

As she settled down for her third night, waterskin only half full and her food stores running on empty, she said a prayer for her husband and brothers. That they lived, and that her husband had won the battle with Robert. That Ned wouldn’t be so stupid as to fall with the Stormlords and the Vale for honor’s sake. And if he did, that Benjen wouldn’t do the same. 

 

But saying the words didn’t feel like it did when she would pray in the godswood at Winterfell. 

 

In the darkness of Dorne, it felt like nothing at all was listening. 

 

\--

 

It took longer than she expected for the kingsguard to find her. For a time she had thought that maybe no one would and she would accomplish what she set out to do. 

 

By the fourth day, she was entertaining notions of turning around and seeking out the Kingsguard, or going back to the spring at least. Even as she knew she’d reach the bottom of the range by nightfall, delusions of going back to see Rhaegar, Ser Hightower, Ser Oswell and Ser Dayne stalked her thoughts. 

 

Everything hurt, and she felt broken and heavy. Her limbs were dead weights attached to her torso and her lips were split in too many places to count. The stinging taste of her salty blood she cherished on her dry tongue, even as licking opened up more fissures in her flesh. 

 

The sun was still creeping over the mountains, and there was a cool fog lying in the valley before her. Slowly, it disappeared. The beams of light crawling over the peaks sucked up the last bit of dawn into day. 

 

When the last of the mist had dissipated, defeated, she heard the  _ scrape scrape _ of armoor moving against itself, small bits of rock tinkling down the cliff faces on the side of the switchback she was currently on. It amazed her how close this person was, had been, before she noticed. 

 

More, she recklessly longed to meet whoever it was.

 

The loneliness, the pain from walking, her waterskin now dangerously low, overrode rational thought. If it could just be over now, she’d go home to Winterfell and grovel to father- no, Ned, and he would take her in. He would.

 

And yet it was Arthur, trundling down the trail. Only Arthur, who shocked her completely still as she felt the dual pull of surprise and fulfillment of expectation. When he appeared, the relief she felt almost undid her. She wanted to cry and throw her worn body into his arms and beg him to take her back to the Tower. 

 

_ You came! You found me!   _ She almost crowed. 

 

It was his own haggard appearance that stopped her from darting to embrace him in sheer gratitude.

 

If he was here, he’d walked the same path. She knew what it took and what was missing from the man was more than the energy it took to get here. 

 

She shifted to face him fully, her stance wary and waiting. 

 

The skin atop his head was red from the sun, sweat long ago having turned the man’s fine hair into greasy locks that didn’t quite protect him from the less than tender mercies of the sun. He hadn’t looked up yet, but she noticed he had no white cloak and she tried to think about what that meant.

 

“Lyanna.” He stopped abruptly when he saw her, boots scuffing hard against the sand and gravel in his shock. It was clear that he had thought he was on a fool’s errand. She’d expected a group of soldiers, or that the man who came to find her didn’t look so drawn and run down. Not that she was any better. 

 

Yet, still, he looked off. 

 

They gazed at each other, Lyanna doing her level best to maintain a facade of calm. Arthur’s face was an open book, but a confusing read. 

 

He peered over the ledge and blinked hard before looking back at her, his eyes roving down to the child inside her before settling back on her face. 

 

“You- you’re here.” She said dumbly. 

 

“As are you.” He looked… guilty. Like he’d failed, worse than failed. As if he’d done something wrong that he couldn’t forgive himself for. She’d seen that look on Benjen’s face when he had warped his bow father had only given him the week before by leaving it out in the practice yard to be rained on.

 

“And the cloak?” Her gut was slowly turning to stone, settling and sinking into a deeper fear than she had known when she first left the Tower. Something, several things were wrong about this. So very wrong. But all she could ask after was the stupid white cloak that he was supposed to wear. 

 

“It was over. We thought we’d lost you, quick as you were. And then the raven came, and we thought-” he paused, his face contorting into more twisted, grimacing shame, “we’d failed, we did fail. To protect you, and then to find you. And-” his arms spread out before him helplessly, and a glimmering of understanding swept through her. 

 

They had given up looking. 

 

Arthur wasn’t here for her. 

 

“Starfall.” She looked down, but kept the Dornishman’s face in her periphery. 

 

“It’s complicated-” 

 

“I really don’t see what is,” she snapped, abruptly furious at imagining the implications of his being here and not wanting to follow down the logical conclusion of events that must have led him to this point. Fear was building like a wave inside her, and she watched it come closer with no hope of standing after the truth hit. 

 

“Gods be damned,  _ enough! _ There’s no time anymore for you to childishly assume that we kept everything from you out of spite. At every turn we’ve only done what the Prince asked, and though it’s not our place to judge, even I can’t see the value of him having done what he did when it came to you! It lost him the war, it-” stopping abruptly, his face twisted again.

 

“Oh so you think I don’t understand? You think I don’t- Robert, he, just tell me he didn’t-” Arthur’s tenuous hold on his composure crumpled and his face rippled with sadness. 

 

“I loved him too, I loved him enough to listen to him when he put aside Elia, when you came, I did what he asked, and in the end I couldn’t protect him. He had a vision, the three heads of the dragon, and all I had to do, all we had to do was  _ outlast _ King Aerys.” Arthur’s hand was wiping the tears and grime from his cheeks, streaks of clear skin trailing behind his fingers. The Kingsguard knelt down on the trail and leaned back into the rock behind him, staring out, away from her. 

 

“You fucking coward. The Sword of  _ fucking  _ Morning ran.” Her fists clenched, rage overtaking her. 

 

“You weren’t looking for me at all. No, all of you had given up on him, on his child. Why? How could you even consider-” She exploded, looming over him and willing her voice to penetrate every last shield the man had put up against telling her what she already knew in her heart. She wanted to dig her claws into his skin and rip it from him.

 

He shot up in front of her, his face inches from hers, spittle flinging from his open mouth. 

 

“ _ You ran _ ! It was you  _ first _ , you left when he told you to  _ stay _ . You lied, you made me, all of us think you were discontent but accepting of the circumstances, the ones your own husband put us all in! How could you care so little for his plan for you? We thought that you, his child were lost for good on some ship to Essos or buried somewhere in the desert.” Each emphasized word was punctuated with steps towards her, wild gesticulation pushing her back.

 

“And you didn’t think to find me? To even look?” Not to be outdone, she shoved him forward, hands pressed against solid chest and leather. 

 

“You don’t get it both ways,” his finger shook in her face, the violet of his eyes boring into sleet gray. She could see every wrinkle outlined by dirt. He was in his prime, but he wasn’t a young man anymore. 

 

“You can’t just run and expect us to chase, but not want to be found,” he continued, “we couldn’t send ravens, we couldn’t  _ do _ anything. Trying to advertise that we were looking for a woman that everyone in the Realm has already been searching for would be foolish. But we still tried, thinking you couldn’t get far.” Arthur looked miserable, reliving it. He turned away, hiding again.

 

“Then the raven came, and it was over. I haven’t spoken to my sister in almost a year. Couldn’t tell her where I was, and I left. There was nothing else I could do.” Lyanna had never seen someone who had fallen apart like Dayne in such a short time, who was crumbling and shredding at the seams of his person. Death was known in the north. Children died and parents grieved. Men didn’t come back from hunts. Women never left the birthing bed. 

 

But those things were pale visions compared to a man whose light had gone out in the window of his heart. A man who lived, but didn’t. 

 

The wave crested, the top of it hovering over her heart, waiting to drown everything. 

 

“Where is he. Where is my husband.” 

 

\--

 

If before there were blisters, bruises and exhaustion, now there was a canvas painted with numb cold and blistering agony in equal measure. She was no longer fatigued; she was consumed whole by the circumstances. Resting atop her horse was no cure; her attempts to slow her own thoughts brought about new ones that exacerbated her inflamed wounds. The only thing that stirred inside her were the limbs of her as of yet unborn child. 

 

Her mirror image, yet still wholly male counterpart, rode beside her. Sometimes when she looked at him it disturbed her that she might also look as broken as he did now.

 

She was beyond, or had not yet achieved, the missing of him, her husband. 

 

He had already been gone from the Tower, and it was a known reality. He was gone, and said he would return. And so her heart softly pleaded that it was a trick, it was a lie, there was no proof. Rhaegar would come, because surely, she came for him and it would be uncivil, not the done thing, for him to not do the same. He said he would and he was a Prince, and his word could not mean nothing.

 

And then a whisper. 

 

_ He’s dead.  _

 

And her very essence quaked under the brunt of the assault, pain singing like the edge of a knife glancing flesh. Like a tourney, truth’s mount turned around the tilt for another course, another stroke against the vestiges of her sentiment. And, unlike a tourney, the courses never stopped. Blow after blow rained down, paroxysms of guilt and anger telling tales of what might have been and could now never be. 

 

But the North teaches one how to endure. Even when the hurt is beyond endurance.

 

Rhaegar. It had always been Rhaegar. Silver-haired and so hot she feared her hand would burn to touch him the first time they laid each other bare. Rhaegar Targaryen who had, with a delicate swipe of his spear, dropped a flowered crown on her head and declared her Queen. The ripples of which had upended a realm. His words were the type of promise that Lyanna had been told not to believe in, but did anyway, because he said it with such conviction. 

 

_ Queen of Love and Beauty.  _

 

At that moment when he stood in front of her, pale horse and pale man, Lyanna had been prepared to ignore another poncy southron lord. Yet when she saw the implacable look on his face that _ he would not be denied _ , it was too late to turn from the path she was about to take. What was a wolf to a dragon? She dared not turn away from the predator before her and she would not show him the whites of her eyes rolled back in cowardice. 

 

Back straight, Robert watching from the greatest distance she could keep between them, Brandon’s ever present grin shifting to nervousness, she let that crown fall on her head and the realm came crashing down with it, an initially slow moving but devastating tumble into blood and fire. 

 

If her father had known all of what was to come, he wouldn’t have just turned her from this path, but dragged her bodily to stay behind the walls of Winterfell indefinitely. Baratheon engagement be damned and the dragons with them. She knew now, thinking about her own child, how Rickard must have felt when she vanished, how helpless and deep the pain would have been. 

 

For a moment she contemplated keeping it all from him or her, the writhing babe inside that didn’t know any of this world. They could live a life free of the influence of his birth family, both of them. 

 

But then she also knew the torment of being denied choice and the knowledge to make it, how it had driven her here. She’d also be a fool to think that the Gods wouldn’t punish her for what she’d done; they would likely give her a wolf child with the heart of a dragon, like his mother. 

 

_ Like his father. _

 

In the ever shortening time before they reached Starfall, she and Arthur felt each other out. 

 

She knew the right choice was to leave Westeros. With Rhaegar dead, Robert would never stop searching for her until he found a body. And if he found her with child, she wasn’t sure if he’d wait to execute her or demand her hung with her womb still full. 

 

Still, she had questions. And she asked them of the Sword of Morning, trying to stay away from his very personal decision to remove his cloak. She wanted to give him time to think on it, to regret it. Selfishly it would be best if he came with her, bound with an oath of loyalty to Rhaegar’s heir.

 

Elia and her children had been killed in the melee of the sacking at King’s Landing by Lannister armies. The ravens had said that much, but as far as she understood, the seat of the Iron Throne could have withstood a siege for some time. 

 

“The gates were thrown open at King Aerys request, to lead Tywin’s armies in. But once there, Elia and her babes died while the Lannisters lingered until my husband was dead, before declaring for Ro- the Usurper. But why not join Rhaegar on the field? Surely my husband would have rewarded him for removing the Mad King, so Lord Tywin had no fear in meeting with Rhaegar’s army. Didn’t they know that my husband needed the Westerland armies in the first place?” She twisted to look at Arthur, having found no readily available answer to this question amongst her own musings. 

 

“The unseen enemy is always more fearsome, Lyanna.  _ Think _ . It was never enough for the North and the Riverlands to declare for House Baratheon. If all anyone wanted was to be rid of King Aerys, they had done it. So why did things play out as they did?”

 

“Yes, and I just asked you,” she grumbled before thinking aloud, “well it wouldn’t be Dorne to be involved in treachery, never Dorne. Rhaegar didn’t intend to set Aegon and Rhaenys aside, and no one should know what has happened between him and I. Hightower doesn’t sound right, Lord Manfred opened the gates for Aegon when he first came, the Reach stayed out of the Dance and benefited in the end from Aegon the Younger,” she trailed off. The North was for Stark, through and through. And Brandon had been set to marry Lady Catelyn Tully, who would now likely marry Ned, which perhaps put the Riverlands out of reach of the Targaryens. 

 

Their horses had a rolling gait as they slowly made their way down into the lower elevation. Lyanna found it helped stimulate her mind, as riding almost always did. Even as grief and physical ailments tried their hardest to distract her. 

 

“Lady Lysa Tully married Jon Aryn, and Ned has already fulfilled his duties by Lady Catelyn.” Arthur offered. She sucked in her breath, thinking of her brother, and tried to pack the knowledge up and put it away where she kept the rest of the memories of her family. 

 

Knowing the players left on the field helped her think, along with the quiet of their journey. She waited for the answer to come to her, while silence hung comfortably around them. 

 

“Lannister. Tywin wanted something he wasn’t getting with Rhaegar. But why turn to Robert?” 

 

“To be fair, he did wait to see which way the winds were blowing. It should have been easier to deduce than that, but I suppose you’ve never met Lord Tywin Lannister, or know much of him.” Sighing, the long suffering man who had stood by the Mad King’s rule spoke contemplatively. 

 

“Lord Tywin was ill, that he gave up his post as Hand of the King.” She ventured.

 

“Pah!” Arthur spat. “Ill from swallowing the King’s slights. Many a Lord wanted your husband for their own daughter, but Lord Tywin meant it more than all of them. I served the day that King Aerys said he would never wed a servant’s daughter into his house. This, after he stole Tywin’s heir for the Kingsguard. And I was there too when King Aerys accepted that Prince Rhaegar would marry Lady Elia Martell, who he also considered little better than a servant as well, for all that the Targaryens had never truly conquered Dorne. It’s said though, that the Prince himself wanted nothing to do with the lions, seeing Lord Tywin’s grasping as off putting, and while Cersei is beautiful, he found her haughty and prideful. Unsuitable for a future Queen. Prince Rhaegar had expected the Lannisters on the field behind him, as the King was dead and the Prince was prepared to pardon all involved in the matter. But not hide nor hair was seen. The Lannisters wanted a Queen, something the Prince had slighted them in not giving. So they made it possible by removing their obstacle, and when Rhaegar still refused… Well, now they’ll likely have a Queen. What do they care if the King is a Stag or a Dragon, so long as their line sits the throne.” Tywin had initially said that Elia, Aegon and Rhaenys’s deaths were accidents. Overzealous soldiers bent on stripping the Red Keep of possessions. Tywin had put heads on spikes for the grievous error, but it didn’t bring back the Crown Prince and Princess. Lyanna still couldn’t understand how Tywin had simply gotten away with keeping his army coiled around a throne that didn’t belong to him. How he had murdered Rhaegar’s family through supposed negligence, and yet still Rhaegar would treat with him?

 

“How do you know all of… this, yet no one in the realm speaks of these things?”  

 

“I protected and served, not gossiped. For all the good it did the realm. And here I am forsaking vows when I should have broken them long ago, when it mattered.” Lyanna didn’t think that intent was as important. She knew the veracity of this belief in her very blood. Brandon and father died because of what she did, not what she thought when she did it. The knight may have tried to abandon his vow, but through happenstance and perhaps the guidance of the Gods, he was denied that. The very world had moved to bring him to her, to her unborn child.

 

“Don’t be dramatic, you’re here with your Prince’s child. His last child. You’ve forsaken nothing, despite your best attempts,” she swallowed in terror at the thought of Rhaegar’s other children, whose corpses she could barely dwell on before tears would spring to her eyes, even as she casually tried to dismiss the Arthur’s failed intention. 

 

“I ran, and I’ll never forget that. The vow is broken, regardless of whether I want it to be or not.” The Sword of Morning looked haunted then, his skin as pale as his milk-white blade underneath the grit and grime. 

 

“But you ran to me.” Her words had a soft keening to them, willing their meeting to be fate.  

 

“Life is not a song. If you want to survive this, both of you, you can’t be fierce when you need to yield, or live free of duty when your actions cause ripples throughout the realm.” He looked over at her, his eyes begging. They sparkled a friendly periwinkle, a strange contrast to the desperate askance in his face. 

 

“You think to teach me by enforcing that there are dreadful consequences for disobedience, but there’s nothing left to tempt me from duty, my Lord.” He paused in thought then, the sounds echoing from their mount’s hooves and the creak of the leather saddles a comforting background noise as the knight considered her words. 

 

“Queen Rhaella and Viserys are holed up in Dragonstone. King Aerys had sent them away. I served the King while he was alive, kept his secrets and shame, though he may have felt none. If you bear a son, he is the rightful heir, and if not…” She blinked owlishly, not understanding the issue. If she bore a daughter, Viserys would be King and free to marry anyone in the Seven Kingdoms. “Viserys will want to secure the throne. He’ll betrothe himself to your child. Likely his own sister too.” He tilted his head at her wide belly, eyes hooded with something unspoken. 

 

_ Think Lyanna. You must be better at understanding this game of thrones.  _

 

Viserys wouldn’t find them, likely, but if he did, the worst would be that her daughter would marry him, if her babe was a girl. And while Lyanna didn’t want an arranged marriage for her daughter, she could admit now that there were many men worse than Robert Baratheon, at the end of things. 

 

“He’s mad, like King Aerys, isn’t he? Or has the beginnings of it,” Arthur said nothing, his face as flat as it had been when betimes Rhaegar would say some outrageous thing about his father, Aerys, to the Kingsguard in the Tower.

 

It took a moment longer before it clicked. “If I do bear a daughter, then Viserys is the rightful King, and if so, you cannot challenge him. You have to offer him the same service you did King Aerys.” He cast her a small smile, violet eyes crinkled with something that looked like pride. “Well you could have just told me! I wouldn't tell a soul!” She huffed, irritated at his lack of forthcoming. 

 

“And where’s the teaching in that, hmm?” 

 

“What’s the point in teaching me if you’re giving up on your duties?” Lyanna had never been someone who had strong social niceties. Living in the north meant she wasn’t exposed to the fancy manners and machinations of the south, except through the desperate machinations of her Septa. Robert and others at the Tourney had seen the bluest winter rose and thought nothing of her thorns as they thought to grasp her. 

 

_ Excepting him. _

 

She shuttered that pain away, even as she remembered how she tried to cut him with her words and he still held on tight, letting her sharp edges sink into him without fear. 

 

Arthur tsked once at her brutish attack, but looked pensive for a moment. Then he smiled wistfully before it slipped away. 

 

“Your people, they don’t worship the Seven?” He changed the subject seemingly at random, lightly enquiring her to answer. 

 

“Not a sept to be found in Winterfell. If you stood in front of the weirwood like I have Ser Dayne, you would know the face of the gods.” After all, what were the Seven to the nameless and numerous of the North? The Seven did not speak but for their written word, while the sighs of the wind rustling through the godswood were ever present, their eyes always watching over their children. No priests were needed to stand between a man and divinity. 

 

“What are gods to dragons? They do say that the dragons who flew were named after the Old Valyrian Gods themselves.” He said amiably, not a hint of challenge to his tone. “If there is a question as to who shapes the world, it is those born to lead. The Gods themselves may find they are malleable in the hands of men.” She huffed as he finished. 

 

“You were never this cryptic in the Tower. And for a man who isn’t very good at cyvasse, you’d be better served by being straight Ser Dayne.” He laughed heartily, and flashed her a smile larger than she’d seen on him in a while. It wasn’t out of place, his sudden outburst of joy, but she felt a twinge of sadness. Arthur must have seen the slight change to her expression, or perhaps he fell back into melancholy of his own accord, but he turned away, looking steadily forward once more.

 

“This is going to be hard. Harder than you or I can understand.” He pulled up his horse and reached over to grab the reigns of her mount to force her to stop and look at him as he spoke. “What we’re looking to do, maybe the Gods will smile on us. Or they won’t. It doesn’t matter anymore to think about them, because if they were as real or as strong as we thought, I can’t believe they’d let him fall.” 

 

“Lyanna Stark is dead. Arthur Dayne is dead. We must kill them when we leave this place.” He paused and waited for her to understand that he meant that the people they were would be no more. That as soon as they left for the Free Cities, they left behind their ghosts. 

 

She nodded to him in acknowledgement. She was ready. 

 

He continued, “I’ve killed hundreds of men. Watched many more die. And they’re all so sure that their lives have meaning. That they were real and complete, that they weren’t just a puppet. But I cut their strings and they fell down. Rhaegar fell down at the Trident. Then I wonder what has ever made me different from them. I want to believe, Lyanna, that the Stranger hasn’t made all this to grow the things it would kill. I need to believe that there is more than being a pawn in this world. And Rhaegar, it was him that told me there could be dragons, and made me trust in that.” He sighed, “but until the time is right, we are puppets, with no role in this Kingdom until it’s time. I-” his hands were white knuckled on the reigns, but he gamely met her gaze and his violet eyes sparked with the raw vulnerability that truth lent them. “Aerys. I stood by and watched a madman, a King, became depraved and filled with fear. It had already started when I took up my cloak, and I see it in Viserys. If he becomes King, well, you must be dead, until you are not. If he does not take the throne, you still must die.” 

 

“Until I am not dead. Until we are not puppets any longer.” She reached out and grabbed his hand tightly and pulled his other to the taut bulge of her stomach, uniting her child’s protector, her and the would-be monarch inside her. It wasn’t the time to mention the mistakes they both had made in running. And it was all right, because they both held close the truth of their own errors, and how they would make it up to the world, to their Prince, and to his child. 

 

“Until we are not, that’s right.” A tentative, real smile ghosted his lips. She wanted to trust it was one that aspired to keep sacred the trust of being a White Cloak. She wondered if he had laughed and beamed with pride when the white garment was laid around his neck. But she remembered too that he wasn’t a stranger to cutting ties with his house either; he’d set aside being Lord of Starfall to take his place in the White Cloaks. It had been all but assured that if Ser Hightower fell or passed in his sleep, that the Sword of Morning would take his place as High Commander. He was giving that away too, for his duty. 

 

They pulled away then, and Lyanna couldn’t be upset that Arthur had all but told her she was unprepared. She felt his fear as he spoke, his terror at walking into the great unknown of the Free Cities.

 

And maybe too, bit of fear at going home to the familiar, to Starfall. 

 

\--

 

When the  _ Palestone Sword _ tower of Starfall appeared on the horizon, they both forgot their discomfort. The awful blisters on Lyanna’s thighs cried out for salve that she would surely get upon arrival, and she spurred her tired mount faster even as each bounce rubbed her skin raw. 

 

She’d ceased calling Arthur “Ser Dayne” or even so much as a “My Lord” these past two days. There was little time for courtesies. It went without much saying they were attempting to outride phantom enemies that if they truly existed, were already ahead of them by way of raven. 

 

Arthur, however, was confident that no matter who sat the throne, his sister would open the gates to them without question. After that, it was only a matter of time until someone would show up to claim Arthur for the Usurper. Not even a thieving King would turn down the Sword of Morning for his coterie of White Cloaks. And word would spread fast, as spies were everywhere, in every nook and cranny of a keep. 

 

They’d both rehearsed this moment to exhaustion. Arthur had forsaken his vows with a peasant woman of the North. Lyanna, as the Northern woman named “Lettie”, had found her way south to Skyreach aboard a merchant vessel, looking for warmer lands. And of course, Arthur having been stationed at the Tower of Joy, had visited the town and slept with her at an innkeep. It had been only one time, the Dornishman not generally being prone to such weakness, but upon his return Lettie was pregnant and certain it was his. 

 

Lyanna argued up and down the story was flimsy and had holes large enough to fly Balerion the Black Dread through. Arthur retorted that too much detail would make liars out of them faster than not enough. And besides, they only had to fool the guards at Starfall. In the Free Cities, they could find new identities, or perhaps flesh these out further. 

 

Realizing that he wouldn’t budge on the matter, Lyanna instead focused on holding her bladder and ignoring the numerous aches and pains that threaded through her body. It was a funny thing, how having to piss could help her endure much of everything else. 

 

For all the times she stopped her horse and Arthur would dutifully help her off, then turn away for at least a moderate amount of privacy as she urinated, he never complained. Getting back on the horse was hard enough for both of them. They would each flinch as they settled in, though Lyanna had a small glimmer of pride that she was the better horseman. More experienced and better calloused on her thighs, though it’d been some time since she’d been on a horse before leaving the Tower. 

 

When they finally gazed on the mouth of the river Torentine as it poured into the Summer Sea and its island castle, Lyanna didn’t have the sense to feel any fear. She was Lettie now, enamored of the Sword of Morning and carrying his bastard babe. 

 

_ Would it be better you were a bastard? _ She wondered of her child. Without a father, he was as good as. 

 

_ Oh Rhaegar, what have we done? For all of time they will never know that it was our love that brought down a kingdom. _

 

She pushed away her feelings, promising herself there would be time to weep and acknowledge her loss, but it wasn’t now. Not when they were so close. 

 

Without Arthur’s cloak and armor, they garnered no more than a curious glance from children and a few cries from merchants with wares to sell. Dogs ran through the dusty streets, attended by children. Between them they played a game only dogs and the young knew the rules of, darting between carts and buildings. 

 

“We should sell the horses now.” She leaned over and murmured to him as best she could above the din of the streets. 

 

“And have you walk? No, with luck I’ll be recognized by the ferryman.” 

 

Their luck did hold as when they approached said ferry, a grizzled man with a poorly shorn beard whooped with excitement and lumbered off the barge to limp his way over to Arthur. 

 

“Ser Dayne! I’da recognized that mien anywhere e’en if ya ain’t covered in white!” 

 

“Ormond, you’re still running these shores then?” Arthur beamed, the boy who must have grown up here was come home as a man, as he dismounted and was swept into a tight squeeze from the other man. Ormond’s face was a jolly red, light blue eyes twinkling with mischief and glee. When he released Arhtur, his face turned a shade serious even as the mirth never left his eyes. 

 

“Well, we best be gettin’ you to the Lady then.” He then turned to Lyanna, eyes appraising, though without petty judgement. “I see you got yerself a pretty Northern lass there. Ain’t a drop of Rhoynar or Andal in that one!” 

 

His assessment made her anxious and she looked at Arthur in askance. 

 

“Nothing’s changed I see! You still know lasses better than you know boats.” Ormond chortled at Arthur’s words and gestured for them both to bring their horses onto the ferry. As Arthur helped her get down from the horse for the last time, she felt the relief of having made it here. Her feet were firmly planted on the ground and she didn’t intend to get back up again until she’d had her child.

 

“We’ve done it.” She said breathily. 

 

“That we have, my Lady.” He graced her with a genuine, full-hearted grin. The man was home, and he wore the familiarity well, and it made her think his secret fears had been unfounded.

 

“Lettie!” She swatted him playfully, reminding him to play his part. 

 

As they settled into the barge, Lyanna tried to observe best she could what Ormond thought of her. But surprisingly the man said nothing at all about the circumstances of a heavily pregnant woman traveling with the Sword of Morning, who very clearly had abandoned his white garments and armor. 

 

“Ormond has been running this ferry some thirty years time. He’s loyal to house Dayne, I can assure you.” Arthur leaned over, having recognized her concern and the root of it. 

 

“And how is the Lady of Starfall these days?” Arthur continued. Lyanna then relaxed and let the men make conversation as she observed the workings of the ferry. On either side of the barge rested taught ropes that spanned the short distance between the shoreline and the island where the seat of House Dayne rested. The ropes were attached to the boat by way of solid metal hoops, and they slid their wet length over the metal as they were propelled forward. The river was shallow here, and Ormond stood at the back with his long pole, pushing off of rocks and sliding the boat closer to the stony island while the river fought to tear it away from the rope. The horses had been carefully tied into place at the front of the barge, blinders over their eyes to prevent panic. 

 

“The Lady, well, hmm, you’ll be seein’ her soon enough. The little lady and your nephew are in Sunspear last I heard.” Lyanna could hear something unsaid regarding the Lady Ashara, but it was Arthur’s business to pursue. 

 

“Ah the Water Gardens. Been there a few times myself.” Arthur sloughed off the journey as if it were weeks or months ago, and she wondered that perhaps while he was the best swordsman in Westeros, they told so many stories about him because he was an amiable, gracious man behind his ancestral sword. 

 

“Pah! Bunch of fancy lairds and ladies dancing in waterfalls.” The older man said irreverently. “They forget what water means.”

 

“You’re starting to sound like a Greyjoy, Ormond.” 

 

“Not bein’ a poncy laird afraid a’ the sea don’t make a man a squid, Arty.” 

 

She let herself drift as they traded good natured barbs. Starfall was glorious; Winterfell stood crisp and absolute, but the Seat of House Dayne was a joyous and free thing that reached towards the sky as the water around it teemed with life. The Torentine left behind it a trail of green, that Lyanna knew made its way all the way up past High Hermitage and Blackmont to the Reach itself. 

 

It was all too soon that they docked on the craggy rocks. A small path of uneven boulders had been dragged over the larger stones and Ormond set about laying down slabs of wood over these rocks. The horses wouldn’t otherwise be able to manage the trip. 

 

Arthur carefully guided their mounts as Ormond gave her a quick “me’ Lady” as he helped escort her to shore. 

 

Up close the castle looked more like a home. Like Winterfell, the stone blocks were large and somewhat worn in parts that hadn’t been patched. Servants moved about, busying themselves with running of a household that was, in its way, no different than the North. Strips of fish replaced venison and cotton was favored over wool as the textile of choice, but otherwise it was the very picture of any  Great House.

 

Unlike Ormond, however, the servants did not openly greet Arthur. They threw him sidelong glances and whispered amongst themselves as Lyanna watched a crease from in the Dornishman’s forehead and a small frown make its way to his thin lips. Bustling this way and that, the servants slunk into the crevices and doors of the castle walls like so many mice running from a predator. 

 

She wanted to say that she could have told him the reception would be like this, that Ormond was a miraculous exception to the norm. If he hadn’t known though, he would have been a fool.

 

“Well, lad.” Ormond clapped a hand on Arthur’s shoulder, grimacing only slightly, the man’s apparent cheer undimmed by the harsh realities of what the masses thought of broken vows and pregnant women accompanying a supposedly celibate man. 

 

“Ormond.” Arthur turned and clasped the man’s arms in his hands as Lyanna watched a multitude of emotions flicker across the Sword of Morning’s face. It was very well the last time Arthur would see the man, and while Lyanna didn’t know what place the ferryman had had in Arthur’s life, she suspected it had been the role of a teacher. 

 

The man gruffly whispered some things to Arthur that Lyanna couldn’t make out before slapping his back and shuffling towards the waiting barge. Arthur looked after him for a moment before turning to Lyanna, determined. 

 

“Well my Lady?” He offered her his arm. She took it and hissed, “Lettie.” 

 

They strode towards the gates which had been left open and entered Starfall’s Courtyard. Attendant guards shifted and approached. One of the men broke stride and pulled of his helm before breaking into a jog towards Arthur. 

 

“Roryn!”

 

“Arty, what in the name of the Seven? Word on the wings of ravens is that you’re dead or an oathbreaker.” He stopped toe to toe with the Sword of Morning and tilted his head. “I guess we know what the truth is.” 

 

Lyanna tried to shrink into her skin as Roryn looked to want to beat Arthur or pull him into his arms. 

 

“My vows are between my King and the Seven.”

 

“Then you haven’t heard that Robert Baratheon sat his arse on the iron throne aye?” 

 

“Viserys yet lives.” Arthur lied while telling a truth of his presence.

 

“Holed up in that Dragonglass rock the Targaryens should have stuck to when they left Old Valyria. Fittin’ that a bastard House of theirs be the ones to make them slink back into their nest.” Roryn was like many Dornishmen in that most felt they could take or leave the Targaryen line, Dorne itself having survived many a dragon and their rider giving them a unique pride. It was also no small thing that Dorne had given the throne a princess, someday a Queen, who had fallen. Regardless of who thrust the sword, responsibility for her life fell upon Rhaegar. And instead of being protected, she was left at Kings Landing to the tender mercies of King Aerys and whatever conspiracies that surrounded him with the intent to end his awful reign. 

 

“All of it aside, I’m here to see my Lady sister.” The guards shuffled and Roryn squinted into the sun that had begun to set on the horizon. 

 

“Mayhap you rest first and-” 

 

“Roryn, I will handle our guests from here.” Having stepped from the shadows, the Lady of Starfall was nothing but a silhouette herself. From the top of her head to the loosely fitted dress that draped on her rail-thin body, she bore only a passing resemblance to the lady who had danced so gaily at Harrenhal. Lyanna quickly looked at Arthur and her heart broke for him, to see him find his sister like this. 

 

The guards dispersed quietly, Roryn nodding to the Lady of Starfall and Arthur in acknowledgement before taking his leave. 

 

“Don’t think I don’t know who you have brought here Arthur.” Ashara took a step forward, her violet eyes burning pits of despair and rage that entranced and bewildered Lyanna. “Starks are not welcome in these walls.” The woman hissed the last word and barred her teeth like a feral animal. Arthur swiftly moved in to hold his sister, while Lyanna registered that the source of Ashara’s hatred was rooted in her name, her family. 

 

_ But why? _

 

“Her babe, it’s  _ his _ . We must protect her, and- well I don’t know what has happened. I couldn’t send word, I’m sorry.” His register dropped lower as he coiled about her, mumbling apologies and comfort into her limp, dull hair. Ashara continued her lurid glare at Lyanna, and the she wolf considered for the first time that guest right might be a priority before she spent a single night in Starfall. 

 

“Just for a week Ashara, then we’ll be gone, I promise you.” 

 

“And why ever would I want you to leave? You’ve served your king, I know they would let you take up the mantle of the Lord of Starfall if you wanted. I’ll write to Robert, tell him you’re never returning to King’s Landing.”

 

“But I don’t want it. I have a duty Ashara, a vow. We’ve been over this.” It was becoming increasingly clear that while Arthur saw the physical issues with his sister, he didn’t see the madness roving under the woman’s skin, waiting to overtake her. Whether it was borne from grief or the need for vengeance mattered little. Eventually Ashara would make peace with her ghosts or she would join them. Lyanna suspected it would be the latter. Given how long it took for a person’s very hair to cease shining, this had been going on for some time. 

 

“Fine, you stay for a fortnight. My men are loyal, the servants are not.” 

 

“Yes, we understand. Her name is Lettie, yes? And she’s carrying… my bastard.” It seemed the lines carved into Ashara’s face could deepen further, and her face scrunched into a paroxysm of fury.  

 

“Very well then. I’ll have a servant show you your rooms. Later you will dine with me.” Stepping out from her brother’s grip, she turned without a second glance and walked back into the castle. A servant scurried out, unmistakably having eavesdropped on the conversation her Lady had been having, ready to make good on the accommodations. 

 

“Something is wrong.” 

 

“Something we might not be able to afford to make our business.” She didn’t mean to be cutting, but the words came out before she could couch them into something kinder. Arthur shot her a frustrated scowl and stalked after Ashara, the servant trailing in his wake. Lyanna followed in their wake, uncertain and afraid of their new circumstances. 

  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

 

When the servant had closed the large wooden door behind her, she stiffly sat on the bed, her hands holding her abundantly large and taut belly. The baby kicked in agreement, that yes, he or she was finding him or herself tightly confined and it might be time to vacate, and soon. Or that’s what Lyanna hoped her child was thinking. She was very much ready.

 

When Arthur had disregarded her, it had hurt, thinking that they’d been in each other’s confidence these past couple days, slogged through blisters and heat together, for what? For Arthur to waver again? As much as Arthur couldn’t admit there were issues he might not be able to solve, it didn’t seem to deter him from wanting to do just that. She had to confess that while she had given up longing for closeness with her own family, having someone to trust had been a relief. And having it taken away, or the threat of its removal, did more to unsettle her than all the running and her unstable grand plans had.    
  
She didn’t have it in her slip back into the person she was a week previous, who was ready to sail to the Free Cities alone. Not after her journey through the mountains. And the dark undercurrent of her faith in Arthur, was that she truly had no one else to turn to, now, when she needed most to have someone to rely on.

 

Lyanna had never welcomed Arthur into knowing who she really was at the Tower. Yes, she’d done swordwork with him, and he’d been her jailer, but it had never been enough to breach the wall she’d thrown up after her husband left. But they’d agreed now, tentatively, to be partners. 

 

It was right that the best swordsman of the realm defend Rhaegar’s last child. And despite Ashara’s pleas that Robert would somehow let the Sword of Morning go, she knew otherwise. Robert’s great loves were fighting, women and drink. He wouldn’t pass up the chance to keep the Sword of Morning tucked into his Cloak doing the rounds in Tourneys, standing behind the Iron throne, reminding everyone just  _ who _ had defeated the dragons. A White Cloak’s appointment was for life. 

 

She didn’t have long with her thoughts before a gentle knock came at the door. Thinking it was Arthur, she bade the man in. 

 

“My Lady,” a Maester who was in his late forties carefully closed the door and made his way over to her, each part of his chain tinkling, stirring feelings of familiarity in Lyanna from back home. Walys Flowers, her father’s Maester, hadn’t been a welcome sight when she’d been at Winterfell, always whispering into father’s ear. The man’s stoney expression of disapproval became a barrier between Lyanna and her family, and while she didn’t resent the man’s knowledge or education, she didn’t agree with his very southron assumption that the North should pay attention to the South. Participate in it, even.

 

“I suppose Arthur sent you?” 

 

“No, my Lady, the Lady Dayne has sent me to see to your care.” The Maester rolled up his sleeves and gestured for Lyanna to accede to his touching of her belly. She sat back as the man gently prodded her flesh with a flat palm. 

 

When his brow furrowed as he continued to knead at her like some overgrown kitten, she huffed at the man. 

 

“Really is this necessary? I do have to bathe at some point.” 

 

“My lady, I believe it is. You are about seventeen fortnights yes?” 

 

“I don’t know, honestly I never considered the time.” She admitted, trying not to feel shame that she’d had no one to attend her pregnancy. He continued to press, this time carefully digging his fingers around the child within her as it pressed against her womb. Maybe the babe’s head was up, but perhaps it was down. All she knew was that her insides felt more compressed each day. 

 

“Any tightening or pain from in here?” His fingers tapped the underside of her belly at the front, right above the padded flesh of her womanhood that she hadn’t seen in months time since becoming with child. 

 

“Nothing, just have to piss, often.” He didn’t take the bait of her crass language, instead mumbling to himself as he got up and crossed over to a bare desk that contained only a few sheets of parchment, ink and a quill. Lyanna wondered why it was even in the room anyway; Ashara would never let her send a raven to anyone. 

 

The scratching of the quill was interrupted by another short knock before a servant, head tilted down but eyes shyly peeking upward to get a surreptitious look at Lyanna, slipped into the room. 

 

“My Lady, I’m to lead you to the bath.” Without so much as a by your leave, the Maester slipped out the way the servant had come in. Lyanna already felt more at home than she had since leaving Winterfell. Maesters ignoring her unless they wanted something, a Lady to puppeteer her and servants to pull the strings. 

 

Obediently she followed the maid down the white-stone halls and stairs to a small room with a moderately size copper tub. It had likely come from the Westerlands, where metals were plentiful and easily shipped down the shoreline. While gold was the largest export of Casterly rock, the land included stores of copper and iron. 

 

The room was uncharacteristically empty of servants, bath houses typically being a hub of activity that included the steaming of garments and churning, wringing and hanging of laundry. While Lyanna hadn’t enjoyed her duties in learning how to tend a home, she had listened to them and knew that it was difficult to port water into many rooms, and as such, any chore involving water or steam was often paired with bathing. 

 

“Well what do we have here? Shoo, Cass, out with you!” The servant had loitered by some drying cloth, ogling Lyanna openly now. Another servant, in her mid-fifties, gestured at the younger girl, evidently named Cass, the latter of which scurried from the room, her brown skirt swishing behind her.

 

Lyanna stood proudly, which was an easy feeling to imitate given the protrusion of her child in front of her, jutting out with reckless honesty that she was about to whelp. The way her body bulged, overhanging into every situation, she felt like an intruder at times. Of course it wasn’t always like that. But with Rhaegar gone, he could never fix that loneliness that made her feel so awkward and lost. Like the child inside her didn’t belong and in light of her terrible choices the world had now passed judgement on her and had found her wanting. 

 

“Now let’s see what Arty has dragged in,” the woman strode over in a commanding way that even her Lord father would have been hard pressed to exude. Rough fingers snatched at Lyanna’s chin, tilting her head this way and that. The woman had a relatively smooth face with wrinkles that had settled into crow’s feet around her eyes and two generous laugh lines that crinkled when she smiled back at Lyanna’s less than open expression. 

 

“Scared of me are you girl?” Lyanna made to protest. “You should be. I raised that man you’ve been traveling with.” The woman’s eyes alighted on Lyanna’s stomach, as if only just recognizing its significance. 

 

“Come now, let’s get you stripped and in this tub.” The woman’s countenance pivoted on a halfpenny, moving into brisk efficiency. 

 

“I can get in on my lonesome, thank you.” She tried not to hiss it angrily, she really did. 

 

“And wash your own hair and scrub your own back with that child you have stuck in you? No, it won’t do.” Her thin fingers pried at the lacings as Lyanna muttered small protests, which soon abated as she stepped her foot into the lukewarm tub.

 

“I’m Gwyn. Your name girl?” The woman grunted as she dumped a bucket of very warm water into the tub that had appeared from nowhere that Lyanna could see. Not that she was paying close attention to her surroundings now that she was seated comfortably. 

 

“Lettie.” She didn’t want it to feel good, not with how embarrassing it was to have this stranger bathe her. Dirt sloughed off her skin and turned the water an ashen tan color as Lyanna slowly rubbed her arms and shoulders. Gwyn threw a few sachets of herbs in and quickly took a sea sponge to Lyanna’s back with little warning. 

 

“Now, Lettie, tell me what in the Seven Hells possessed you to entrap the Sword of Morning, and at a time like this. Shameful it is! Seven save me, I’d take you for a whore if Arty didn’t have more sense than that.” Spluttering, Lyanna swung her arms up, splashing the woman. 

 

“Oh  _ hush _ . You aren’t the one who needs to answer my questions.” Gwyn batted the top of her head before swooping in to dump another bucket of lukewarm water over Lyanna before she could speak. She spluttered once more, gasping on the water, trying to grip the sides of now slippery tub to raise herself up. It had been easy at one time, but now her balance was off by higher margins than she anticipated and she rocked back, her head falling neatly into Gwyn’s waiting hands. As Gwyn started to lather her hair, she continued speaking, the sharp tugs warning Lyanna not to speak, that this lecture was forthcoming.

 

“Arty’s parents met the Stranger three years past, bless Daven and Aelinor’s souls. Seven knows her husband loved her well enough to give her four children and meet with her soon after she passed on. Five years between Andar and Arthur, and then of course the accident that took his life. A mother should never have to know her children met the Stranger before they. It broke her, it did. That and Arthur had already taken that Warrior be damned Cloak. Andar was newly wed too, poor boy. It’s made Ashara the regent until Andar’s son comes of age. Though she can’t bear to look at the lad seeing as- well.” Lyanna listened intently, determined not to interrupt and find herself on the receiving end of firmer punishment. She was too exhausted now, sitting in the water sucked away much of her will to argue with the woman. Gwyn seemed to find herself quickly, and with a few more wrenching tugs through the snarls in her hair, she moved into further chastisement. 

 

“And now he shows up with a girl no more than six and ten in tow, and his sister in need of his counseling. How could he? How could you? Have you not a care at all what it means for a man to break his vows?” She wanted to correct her, to shout that Arthur had broken his vows in some other, more terrible way. That this child was no  _ bastard _ and he was beloved, wanted, the heir to Kingdoms. To hear lambasted what she was fighting for, hurt more than it ought. 

 

_ This is the price you pay. _

 

She was the mother of a bastard in everyone’s eyes, less than that, she was simply a peasant with some fatherless child. There was no defense she could put forth for her reputation. 

 

Tense and unspeaking, she tried to unclench her jaw and relax her fingers. Arguing with the woman who apparently had all but raised Arthur besides his own mother was something she wanted to do, desperately, but it would serve no purpose. The woman couldn’t know any of the reasons behind their actions. 

 

“I think you shall have to ask Arthur, m’lady.” She knew the woman was a servant, but in keeping with her  _ disguise _ she tried to show that she was a backwater country lass of dim wit and looser morals. Let Gwyn think she tumbled gracelessly into Arthur’s bed and thought everyone above her station a proper Lady if it saved her child. 

 

“It’s Gwyn. And you can count on it! You had better not believe there will be a marriage, much less an acknowledgement of the child. He’ll be a Sand.” Gwyn was harsh, perhaps because in all the times Arthur had seemed so kind and good natured, it was because there had been a woman like Gwyn to fight his more difficult battles for him. Swinging a sword had little to do with matters of the heart. Gwyn, and perhaps Ashara, were defenders of Arthur’s duty. 

 

“He loves me.” She pretended, helplessly thinking of Rhaegar. A thick lump made its way up into her throat and she felt the stinging of tears in her eyes. Grief rose up in her gorge and she choked out a sad sob that she had tried to swallow. Gwyn ignored her, the only pity she would offer Lyanna being her silence. 

 

Fat tears pouring down her sodden face, Lyanna dissociated from everything but the feel of Gwyn’s rough hands. Hands that were pulling and wrenching, offering some minor penance for all that she’d done to get here. She had cried many a time before Rhaegar. Over her betrothal, her father’s ire, Ned’s betrayal, the strain of her duty. Now, she wept, and knew that all times previous to this had been a child’s tears, a transient thing that was untethered from true pain. 

 

The tears didn’t stop when Gwyn, not able to meet Lyanna’s wet eyes, pulled her up and out of the copper tub and into the arms of dry cloth. Uncharacteristically gentle, Gwyn dried her large stomach first, eyes soft and pinched with reluctant concern. 

 

“He’ll have a home here, your babe.” She paused, before finishing in a lowly voice, “and if Arty wills it, you too.” 

 

“Thank you.” She hadn’t passed the test, it was nigh un-passable she presumed, but it was enough to know that someone cared, even if only a little. There was a quick burst of rage that filled her, that Rhaegar had left her at the tower, gone and gotten himself killed on Robert’s hammer. But that feeling subsided again, and she only felt sadness again, and a keen exhaustion.

 

Gwyn grunted, returning to her defensive attitude, tossing her a simple shift before exiting the room. Presumably to retrieve her escort. 

 

Sure enough, the same servant previously had shown up to escort her, and Lyanna tried to forget Gwyn. She needed to focus on Ashara and Arthur. On what was going wrong with the Lady of Starfall and whether she could convince Arthur that it wasn’t a distraction they could afford. 

 

* * *

 

 

“I have heard that the Mountain is a man born without the benefit of a conscience.” Ashara said cuttingly, slicing into her meal as deftly. 

 

Lyanna had gotten ready in her room with methodical movements, giving little thought to anything more than ensuring she was properly covered and her hair brushed, with no time for a braid. There were also tonics to take from the Maester, and with a quick swig, she half-prayed they weren’t poisoned. Since sun had gone down she was ready to curl up on her bed and hope that her babe would sleep through the night with her. Instead the servant had come to take her to dinner, and she’d followed with plodding steps, finding herself inside a cold dining hall that looked like it didn’t see much use. 

 

And now, she was stuck between Arthur and his sister, as the woman proceeded to provoke reactions from the both of them. 

 

“There are rumors, or truths, aplenty. That the Mountain raped Elia. That Jamie Lannister put his sword through the King and sat on his throne. That Robert spat on their corpses as they were laid before him by Lord Tywin.” Ashara’s face was shuttered from every emotion but rage, and her anger was greedy for a response. 

 

Arthur coughed and choked on some of his wine as he looked anxiously at his sister. Their eyes were the same, that periwinkle purple. But their hearts couldn’t be more different, as Ashara’s ragged soul burned through the globes set into her pale, heart shaped face. Once, Ned had described Ashara’s eyes as “laughing violet”, and Lyanna could remember that there had once been a woman who looked like the one in front of her that was happy. 

 

Lyanna noted the signs. The way the Lady moved bits of food around her plate without raising a fork to her mouth. Or how Ashara’s hands alighted on her goblet plenty, servants having refilled her glass many times with brisk but unassuming grace. 

 

What was clear, is that Arthur did not see. Yes he must have noted the limp, oily hair. Her pale skin and angles. Whatever was eating the inside out of the Lady of Starfall, however, Arthur wasn’t privy to. Lyanna couldn’t be sure she wanted to know either, but selfishly, if they were to leave, Ashara had to be set to rights before they were gone. As best they could. 

 

So she swallowed her concerns for now, determined to help carry on the facade that Ashara had decided to maintain until she could discover for herself what was behind it. 

 

“How  _ did _ Tywin get away with staying inside King’s Landing?” Lyanna stated, looking at Arthur expectantly. The man took to the question like a crocodile to the salty marsh, thankful to have something more palatable to discuss than the deaths of Elia and her children.

 

“He didn’t. Not really. More than learning about the outcome of the battle, it became known to us that Rhaegar had been sending ravens to Tywin for a month’s time. But as you know, timing is everything. I think the Prince intended to win at the Trident and then make the Lannisters pay after. He had sufficient numbers. More cavalry from the Reach than Robert. It was unlucky, my lady.” Arthur spoke with as much neutrality as he could likely afford, his own grief of Rhaegar not nearly begun to subside if hers were any measure. Neither had had time to grieve, to let go of their Prince, not truly. Still, he attempted to drag their supper-time away from the sullen and tense silence that pervaded it. 

 

“Yes. It was.” She picked at her food while her eyes slanted over to Ashara who was locked onto her with a peculiar expression, one that looked hungry, or desperate. 

 

“For those men who sit on the throne, and even those that don’t,” Ashara’s eyes were still boring into Lyanna as she spoke, “the truth is what they make it. They’ll say the Gods struck Rhaegar down.”  

 

“The Gods have a plan.” Lyanna sat rigid in her seat, arm wrapped tightly around her belly. Ashara’s eyes flickered. There was weakness under the Lady’s bluster. 

 

“Do they Lettie?” The Lady’s tone was close to deadpan, and not a question. Arthur looked devastated by the offhanded comments from his sister, and set down his utensils quietly before murmuring his apologies that he required use of the privy.    
  
Exhausted, her eyes burning from having had such poor sleep from nights on the cold, hard ground, Lyanna was done with dancing around the subject. Ashara must have sensed that Lyanna was bristling and anxious to confront her, as the Lady of Starfall dismissed her servants and bade them shut the doors. 

 

“Leave, all of you.” While servants did only minister to their Lords and Ladies, they were often the lifeblood of a House, their own families having been tied to the family of their Lord for many generations. And at times, when the Lord wanted to be alone, her father’s own men had instead stood fast by his side. They had known that sometimes, the best obedience, the best loyalty, was in defying the Lord to aid the man. 

 

But as the servants hastened out with chins tucked tightly to their chest, she felt the wrongness that she’d first sensed about the entire castle coil tighter around everything. 

 

And as the door shut, Lyanna blinked and stared tiredly at Ashara. The babe kicked as well, and she winced. 

 

“Out with it then, before he’s back.” She spat, not expecting to catch the Lady off guard with her aggression, but hoping to let it carry her away in an emotional tide. She must have been more tired, and ruder sounding, than she thought, because the woman responded with a verbal punch. 

 

“Your brother put a babe in me, and now they’re both dead.” Ashara tossed a hand towel down onto her plate before pushing herself out of her chair.

 

Lyanna was stunned, rewinding the scene of Ned dancing with Ashara at Harrenhal, both of them laughing as Brandon looked on fondly. None of it made sense. Brandon had been set to marry Catlyn, had defended her honor once already from an overzealous boy who thought to marry Hoster Tully’s first daughter.

 

The other woman walked slowly over, her padded feet shuffling against the stone floor in a manner which would have gotten a switch to the backs of her calves had Lyanna ever done so in front of the Septa. 

 

“Don’t think I don’t know what you want. Why you’re here. What you intend.” There was almost affection when Ashara reached out and carded her fingers through Lyanna’s hair. The wolf girl only jerked slightly at the intrusion, though not in fear so much as confusion. 

 

“Your hair was like his.” The Lady dropped her hand and looked down at Lyanna, who was still tucked uncomfortably into the table. She hadn’t regained her voice either, not as she contemplated the deep shame of what Brandon had done. How well Robert and Brandon had gotten on, how she should have  _ known _ if just from that. 

 

“You’ll meet me in the library later tonight. There will be more tonics in your room when you return. Drink those. I’ll have someone come to your door to escort you after. Be ready.” If Lyanna had ever thought that Ashara was weak, she couldn’t see it now as the woman strode out of the room, stiff backed and possessed of all the pride of her name and house. 

 

“Wait, more tonics?” But the woman was already gone. 

 

_ You’re as dumb as Fat Walder, Lyanna, did you forget? _

 

She had in a strange way. As though all the sequences of being pregnant were dissociated from one another. Her baby could kick, but it didn’t truly remind her that soon, she’d be holding him or her in her arms. Even with the Maester having already tended her, and given her a few concoctions to drink, she wasn’t used to the attention. And she definitely didn’t imagine she’d be receiving any help from Ashara, not after what the woman had confessed to her about her own child. But the child was coming soon. It could be from now to another month, if the maester was correct on the timing.

 

The emotions swirling through Lyanna were shame-tinged and bitterly sad. Brandon was her brother, and dead, but he was also dishonorable and deigned to lie to his family. In that way, they were similar, and it rankled. Her heart clenched for Ashara and her lost niece or nephew. Lyanna knew that some part of Ashara’s confession was meant to wound, but the Lady of Starfall’s words had garnered sympathy from her instead. Lyanna resolved to treat Ashara with care because in the strangest twist of fate, they might have been family. She would have been cordial, even pleasant to Ashara, for Arthur. But to treat her as as kindly as a sister was something Lyanna would own.

 

Whatever it was that was guttering the flame of Ashara’s soul, Lyanna would do what she could to stop it from consuming the woman inside out. Invested and ready to begin alleviating the woman’s suffering starting that very moment, she slipped away from the table and went out the same door Ashara had. 

 

“And you let her travel, you utter fool-”

 

“-it wasn’t like that, you don’t understand, she-”

 

“-a failure in all your duties to crown, to him, to me-”

 

“-stop, for the love of the Seven, before you say something-” 

 

“-what? That I’ll regret? You don’t know the meaning of the word.” 

 

Lyanna froze as she listened to brother and sister argue. When the Lady of Starfall spat out a few more rough insults before shuffling away from Arthur, Lyanna stayed rooted to the floor, waiting. It wouldn’t help anyone to wedge herself between the two. Some arguments must be had. 

 

When the hall was blessedly silent, she crept back to her room, wondering if she would tell Arthur. 

 

* * *

 

 

It was Gwyn who arrived at Lyanna’s door to retrieve her for her visit with Ashara. The woman must still have been under the assumption that she was Lettie, a peasant that had interfered with Arthur’s vows, because the disdain evident on her face hadn’t lifted. Instead it had settled into a sour acceptance that involved Gwyn saying not a word to her, only waving for Lyanna to follow. 

 

When they arrived at the room after a series of stairs and halls, Gwyn knocked once before opening the door and gesturing Lyanna in. Inside, a humble fire burned in a hearth, and there were two solid chairs set as close to the fire as was safe, covered in cushions and blankets. In one, Lyanna could see the profile of the Lady of Starfall, complete with goblet in hand. 

 

She sat in the other chair, tense and waiting for Ashara to speak. Neither woman had truly eaten at dinner, her own stomach shrunk and crushed under the weight of pregnancy and Ashara’s under what must be the weight of grief and anger.

 

“Tell me what you saw in him, that made you do what you did.” She wasn’t certain that Ashara knew everything that had brought her here, but she did know enough to make it pointless to lie. It was a hard question for her to have asked, but Lyanna could understand why she had asked it. What Ashara really meant was, if it was worth fighting for? All of this? 

 

Sighing, she thought of her husband, trying not to let his death overwhelm her into more sorrow. It was hard, thinking of all the good things there had been that were now buried with Rhaegar. The way he’d looked at her when they bound their hands together in marriage, or his laugh when they would spar in the courtyard of the Tower. The few months they’d had before he was gone, she treasured remembering, even as the silver of his hair and violet of his eyes blurred somewhat with time. Still,  _ he _ would never be completely parted from her. Some piece of him lived on, and if the gods were kind, and maybe cruel, she’d see him in their child.  

 

“Rhaegar… he’s like fire. I mean-” she stumbled with her words, trying to tell the truth without revealing what truly foolish things she’d chosen to do in order to have him, “he was fire. And he was beautiful, everyone saw that.” She paused, staring at the floor, unsure whether she wanted to continue even as Ashara’s pale, wrathful eyes turned and dug into her very soul, dragging the words out from her being. “Fire is useful. It was the first thing that elevated man away from his scratchings in the dirt. It kept the night away, and the things in it. Man could be something more with fire. Yes, other things came after that, and they were important, but fire was first, and fire is always last.” She caught Ashara’s gaze across the small space between them, the woman preternaturally still, the lively shadows of the flames dancing on her gown making her seem more dead than alive. 

 

“Given that I once thought a man of the North would be unyielding in his honor and love, it’s not mad to think that one of his kind would find herself a moth to flame. Tell me Lyanna, when you decided to forsake your entire family, could you feel the paper thin dignity you wore? When you lay in your marriage bed, and duty sloughed off you, did you find your Stark honor laying discarded with it on the sheets in the morning?” The Lady of Starfall looked cloven of all the good in the world. It was in the inky gray under her starved cheekbones and the skeletal bumps and lines protruding from her flesh, pointing their accusation at her. The sour smell of ale blossomed between them. Lyanna couldn’t help but focus on the small nub on the side of Ashara’s wrist that jutted out just a little too much, and how Ashara’s dress indented at the collar as it was only propped up by bone. The woman was all skin, hunger and pain. 

 

The Lady of Starfall’s appearance made it easy to forgive her insults. She struggled to imagine what it would be like if she lost her own child and had no one. She didn’t want to think on it long. 

 

“Fire and Blood wasn’t a truth we learned in Winterfell, but that doesn’t make it any less real or honorable. So no, I don’t feel like I’ve made the wrong decision, or that I’m lost to my family. Only that I need protect-” She fumbled, knowing she had just lied. Despite her anger at her family, she missed all of them, especially Benjen, who was blameless. Afterall, she did think often on if she’d been an utter fool to rush in and marry a man she had only known from words on some pieces of parchment.    
  
In front of her sat a woman who had lost everything that mattered to her for love. Her babe, all hope of reconciling or marrying the man who dishonored her, and now she would lose her brother too. The beginnings of madness pulsated within Ashara, and she decided it was best to tell the truth.

 

“No- no, you’re right. I wonder every day if what I did was the wrong thing. That loving someone wasn’t enough, it was too much, so much that it killed Brandon, my father, Elia, the little prince and princess, even my husband. But all I can do now is protect his child, our child. It isn’t about thrones or crowns anymore. And I’m sorry that you were caught up in this too.” She forced her eyes to meet the other woman’s.

 

Ashara’s frozen expression flickered, exposing the channels of grief underneath. 

 

“I suppose if he had lived, it might be worse. He would be married to a Tully anyway, and I’d still be sullied.” She rose up, leaving behind a nest of blankets in the chair, moving to stand by a shuddered window, which she opened with a rough push. The night air flowed in, cool and salty.   

 

“Do you think this senseless, futile loyalty to Rhaegar will always exist in you? After all he’s done to the Realm, and to you.” Ashara’s hands gripped the ledge to the window, as she stared out unseeing in the dark. 

 

“It was my choice. Just as it was yours. You don’t feel that twinge for Brandon either? There’s no part of your heart that beats for him?” Slipping back into empty passivity, the Lady of Starfall turned her face to study Lyanna intently. Her eyes were deep and full of nothing, that emptiness stretching out into the Torentine, into the sea, leaching into the very world. 

 

“A cold heart doesn’t beat. It simply rots away into dust.” Lyanna shuddered and looked into the fire, but was only able to see Brandon’s body in the cool darkness of the crypts. 

 

“It doesn’t have to be that way you know. There are things to live for.” She tried to reason, willing Ashara to believe that there was good in this world and it was for her too, if she wanted it. 

 

“Are there? You seem poised to take those away as well.” Lyanna rose up from her seat to stand beside Ashara at the window. The chill from the wind felt cool against her skin as she reached out and put a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. 

 

“You could come with us.” 

 

“There is no place for me in your lives.” The Lady of Starfall didn’t look as though she believed it, but seemed like she wanted to. Lyanna wondered if underneath all the hurt that the girl who danced at Harrenhal did want to live and it was guilt, or duty that made her feel like she ought not to.

 

“That’s not true.” There was Gwyn, and her people. Surely Ashara was loved. 

 

“I don’t want to leave. I don’t want this to get better. If I wake up whole again it will be as though none of it ever happened. And it’s unfair to them. To just go on living while they don’t.” With tear streaked cheeks, Ashara turned to Lyanna and stared at her like a frightened deer. 

 

“He wouldn’t want this for you. If he loved you, the woman he loved was a one with flowers in her hair and laughter in her heart. If all that matters is doing right by him and your child, then you should be that woman again. It would honor him.” Ashara gulped back a choked cry before Lyanna pulled the woman in. The women stood like that until their limbs were numb and the fire was smoldering embers. And for both of them, it started to feel like enough. 

 

* * *

 

 

They’d been here for a week’s time now, Arthur filling into the gaps that Ashara had left as he ordered repairs and the storage of food for the coming winter, along with ravens sent and received from Dorne to Oldtown. Nothing came from the North that she’d seen. 

 

Dining with Ashara had gotten only slightly easier, even after Lyanna had planted the seeds of optimism with the woman. Arthur spent most of his time trying to suss out what was wrong with Ashara during meals. The Lady of Starfall had not seen fit to inform Arthur of what she had readily told Lyanna. And even as she knew keeping it secret might not be the right course of action, she couldn’t bring herself to confess to Arthur what she’d been told. The story was too cruel, and it was not hers. She couldn’t bear to break trust with her newfound friend either. 

 

Ashara did not command loyalty from all her servants directly, and Arthur was able to glean that his sister had been dishonored, and that there had been a stillborn child. The single time Arthur had demanded the name from Ashara she’d walked away from the table, food uneaten, and barred the door to her rooms. Rather than risk his sister’s health, Arthur relented on the subject, but inwardly seethed over how ineffectual he was in this matter. Lyanna was sure she couldn’t lie to Arthur if he had asked, and thankfully he didn’t, never suspecting the tenuous thread between them that was Brandon.

 

When morning came on the seventh day, Lyanna wiped away the sleep in her eyes along with the terrible dreams she’d had of a storm that had capsized their boat on the way to Essos. It had felt real, and she clutched the sheets to assure herself that she wasn’t soaked with rain and seawater. 

 

The servant had busied herself in the room as Lyanna lay there. A fire was lit, breakfast on the table and an assurance that the maester would be by soon. When he arrived, he again prodded her before issuing more tonics. 

 

“Any seizing of flesh?” She almost missed his question, her mind miles away on a boat that didn’t exist, in a storm that didn’t happen. 

 

“Nothing, but the babe does kick mightily.” She’d had none of the false cramps that many women had, which had been a blessing for the pain, but had given her some fear that the child might never come out. When she’d confessed her silly fears to Ashara during the conversations the two women inevitably seemed to have when Arthur could stand his sister’s unhealthy presence for not another moment, the woman had laid a bony hand over hers in something like commiseration. In a way, Ashara was like family. The last family she’d be allowed to have besides her child. 

 

It was fortuitous and foreshadowing then, that as she lay in bed with the maester packing up the last of his supplies, that she felt a tightening across her abdomen that shuddered from the top of her bump down to her womanhood. She sucked in a breath at the lingering pain in her lower back as the wave of constriction ebbed out of her. 

 

“Oh- something happened. It hurt some and feels tight. Is it the babe?” The maester had paused before placing his hands over her large bump, and smoothing his hands over the taut skin. 

 

“I will need to see under your gown.” Embarrassed, she lifted her body off the bed so he could pull it up, tucking it under her breasts. After a few long minutes of his fingers moving across her body as she stared hard at the wood beams on the ceiling, she felt it again. This time, sharper, more insistent. 

 

“That one hurt!” Standing up, the maester walked quickly to the door and whispered to the servant several things that Lyanna wasn’t privy to, but could guess were urgent. A sudden wetness filled the bed and left her with a sense of dread. 

 

“Is the baby coming? Is that what’s wrong?” The maester came over again and his eyebrows rose up towards his hairline. 

 

“Yes, your water has broken now and the child is coming...” His words sounded unfinished, but he didn’t continue as the servant had returned with a stack of sheets in her arms. By the time he had one of the sheets unfurled and draped over her for modesty’s sake along with several tucked under the pool of liquid she’d left on the bed, another servant had arrived bearing more items that the maester’s body inadvertently blocked from her view as he gathered them into his arms. 

 

“The baby is coming?” Arthur pushed his way in, Ashara behind him. He went straight to the maester, while Ashara neared the bed, her eyes unreadable as she looked down at Lyanna. 

 

“Will it be all right?” She asked meekly, struck with a sudden fear for what had been inevitable since the day she had tied her hands to Rhaegar’s. 

 

“We will make it so.” She caressed Lyanna’s forehead then, the ties that bind women who shared a common, primeval fear outweighing whatever tensions and grievances were left against one another. 

 

“Don’t leave.” It was whispered, barely perceptible, but Ashara leaned down to press a gentle kiss above her brow in acknowledgement. 

 

In the background Lyanna could hear the maester implore Arthur to leave it to him, that the birthing room was no place for a man to be. She could hear him retort that the maester was in fact, a man, and that the child was  _ his _ . The vehemence with which the Sword of Morning said it was with all the protectiveness of a father and guardian to a most precious treasure. 

 

It made her yearn for her husband, and she swore her sadness would not get the best of her and if she cried a name out in her need it would be Arthur’s. For the safety of her child, and to keep her heart from being subsumed in the pain that she’d only barely begun to feel. 

 

“I’m not leaving, do you hear me? The Maester said that it will be painful. The babe has not turned around, but is ready to come out. We’re going to have to turn him now. You’ll need milk of the poppy, do you understand?” Arthur had stalked over to the other side of the bed and snatched her hand, desperately squeezing as he spoke. He looked as miserable he had the day she’d met him in the mountains, but the imperious line of his jaw and sheen to his eyes told her that he meant to stay, meant to keep his vows, no matter what the maester insisted.  

 

She gasped and nodded as another wave shivered over her, leaving a deeper ache behind. 

 

“My Lady,” Gwyn had slipped in during the flurry of activity and gazed down at the bed with a guarded expression. 

 

“Yes?” Ashara tilted her face upward, competence and control beaming from her violet eyes. 

 

“There are Northmen at the gates, waiting to cross in the ferry.” The older woman’s eyes were fastened on Lyanna’s pale frame, taking in Arthur’s hand on hers and Ashara’s concern. The she wolf could see the wheels turning, like a mill in the woman’s mind. There was a tense moment before Gwyn perceptibly relaxed into understanding, knowledge. Gwyn’s eyes met Lyanna’s, and she couldn’t fathom what she looked like, surrounded by the ones Gwyn had taken care of all of her life. 

 

“My Lady,” her head tilted towards Ashara first and then hesitantly towards Lyanna. “Shall I delay them?” Arthur turned towards Gwyn, his expression silently begging. 

“Please. They can’t know we’re here.” He said with all the fear that she would say no, and no understanding of what he would do if she did. Gwyn blessedly curtsied to them all as she nodded, her person taking on an aura of authority and determination as she disappeared from the room.

 

Another contraction rolled over Lyanna, and she squeezed her attendants tight. In her mind’s eye, it was her brother who stood outside gazing at the pale stone of Starfall, alone and unknowing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here’s the dealio about some changes in the tags. The thing about Fire and Ice being opposites holds truer than the fact of their temperatures. Jon lived in Westeros. Daenarys lived in the Free Cities. It’s not enough that Jon goes to the Free Cities, which is where you can all see this is going. Daenarys needs to stay in Westeros. Now, in the books, Septa Lemore may very well be Ashara Dayne. She was lady in waiting to Elia Martell. Who better to smuggle out Aegon or find some way to arrange it? In this case, she’s not in GOT, but in all reality she’s an important character overall. The main difference in my mind between the two stories is whether Aegon exists and whether he is a real dragon.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants to beta, that'd be super swell.


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